As a series of conflicts in the Hindu Kush Himalayan region come into sharp focus, sidelining local populations, the long-term environmental costs may leave the region degraded, poor and desperate. Courtesy: CC by 2.0/Lensmatter

By Omair AhmadSep 10 2019 (IPS)

As a series of conflicts in the Hindu Kush Himalayan region come into sharp focus, sidelining local populations, the long-term environmental costs may leave the region degraded, poor and desperate.

It has been a month since India cut off communications and implemented a security lockdown in the part of Kashmir it governs. While India has explained that the governance changes it is implementing – rendering significant legislative changes in territory it governs – as an internal matter, the move has drawn strong reactions from Pakistan and China, both of which claim the territory, at least in some part. The political outcome of these changes are a matter for both international relations and domestic politics within the various countries, but this move is one of many political factors that will make cooperation over the environment in the Hindu Kush Himalayas (HKH) far more difficult.

The Indus, a river of troubles

The impact of any political troubles will be felt the most along the Indus, which rises in Tibetan territory controlled by China, winds through the part of Kashmir under Indian control, enters Pakistan, with one stretch entering and exiting Afghanistan, before reaching the sea after traversing Pakistani territory. The two countries where most of the Indus basin is located are India and Pakistan, and their management of the river is largely governed by the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) signed in 1960. The Treaty has survived the outbreak of the 1965 war and the 1971 war between the two countries, as well as a host of skirmishes and conflict, and it is unlikely to be negatively affected now, as it was not affected in the last such crisis in 2017.

The problem, though, is less about the treaty as it has functioned in the past, but how it will function in the future. The IWT was a product of its times, and thus issues like environmental impact were not covered. The recent Hindu Kush Himalayan Monitoring and Assessment Programme (HIMAP) project led by the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development highlighted that climate change impacts – everything from irregular rainfall to glacier retreat – in the HKH region would be felt most within the Indus basin. These are new factors that the treaty is not designed to cover. The hope that these could be brought into the treaty has now receded. With the Pakistani government withdrawing its High Commissioner from India, and lowering its diplomatic engagement, it seems unlikely that these issues will get the attention they deserve.

More importantly the Kabul river, part of the Indus, is not covered by any treaty. Pakistani policymakers have been hoping for an IWT-type treaty between Pakistan and Afghanistan would deal with many outstanding issues. But with lowered cooperation between India and Pakistan, the IWT looks less and less like a good example to follow. The idea of including China as well, so that the four countries could all be involved in the joint management of a river basin that they all share now seems almost impossible to imagine.

In the meanwhile conflict will continue to degrade the environment, while also limiting scientific access to the more remote parts of the HKH region. Both Indian and Pakistani troops continue to be deployed on the Siachen glacier, the highest battlefield in the world, costing both countries significant amounts of expenditure and significant loss of lives due to the harsh climatic conditions. The material and garbage accumulated on a glacier has significant negative effects for the environment, not to mention cutting off areas like this from any kind of scientific assessment. Reports like HIMAP, dependent on the cooperation of the various governments, will have to continue to deal with these blind spots.

The dangers of over-centralisation

By its very nature, conflict centralises decisionmaking, as security issues take precedence over everything else. This can have disastrous results on the local environment. This was most clearly demonstrated by the Rohingya crisis in Mayanmar and Bangladesh. The million refugees created due to the crisis led to the environmental destitution of the areas where the refugees were settled in camps.

By laying mines across the areas the routes that the Rohingya took, the Myanmarese military may have meant only to restrict human movement, but these were also traditional elephant corridors. Insurgency and civil war in India’s northeast and Nepal, had a deleterious impact on the rhino population, as poachers found it easy to operate. All 30 rhinos translocated to the Bardiya National Park where killed during the Nepalese civil conflict. In Kashmir, the decades of conflict have led to extensive poaching, the destruction of delicate habitats, and a timber mafia operating with impunity. With militarised borders, populations of key species, such as the yak, will find it difficult to travel freely, leading to limited cross breeding, and the decline of their populations.

The centralising tendencies of governments when it comes to “internal security” issues can possibly be best seen in the Tibetan region, where Beijing insisted on implementing agricultural and animal husbandry practices out of sync with local cultures. The local practices had evolved in consonance with the environment of the region, and had been more sustainable, something that China is now discovering, decades after putting into place self-harming practices. Nevertheless this sidelining of local populations remains a significant part of China’s investments abroad, with the China Pakistan Economic Corridor offering a very clear example. Due to its high political value for Pakistan, the investments are handled at high government levels with military support. Local factors are rarely factored in, so the heavy investment at the Gwadar port being built at the end of CPEC has managed to isolate and marginalise local fisherfolk.

Making the mountains poorer

Lastly, there are significant financial costs of the conflict on local people. Fear of violence undermines the confidence of outsiders willing to invest in a region, leaving people dependent on either government funds or their own limited means. The HKH region is one of the most biodiversity rich regions on the planet, and yet its mountain population are significantly poorer than their fellow citizens in their own countries. Despite potential opportunities for innovation and investment, the remoteness of the communities means that other than heavy infrastructure such as dams – which tend to marginalise local communities even more – investment does not reach these areas.

Fear of conflict will only make this more difficult, depriving the 240 million people that live in the mountainous areas of the HKH region that much poorer. This is at a time when climate change is already negatively impacting traditional crops such as apples, and half of the springs in the HKH region have either dried up, or become seasonal from perennial. Desperate people, who have few options, and whose involvement in governance is limited, make for poor caretakers of the environment.

While discussion of conflict between the countries of the Himalayan region is often spoken of in the same breath as nuclear war, the clear and present danger of a breakdown of cooperation in the region may be simpler. The price of conflict may simply mean that the environment is degraded, species are lost, scientific enquiry is stifled, investment is hobbled, and the hundreds of millions of people dependent on the delicate ecosystem of the HKH region will be made poorer and more miserable. It may not be a global catastrophe, but it will certainly be a series of local catastrophes.

It has been a long, arduous journey – a journey ridden curiously with obstacles and indifference. Two decades have passed by since the UN General Assembly (UNGA) adopted, by consensus and without reservation, its landmark and norm-setting resolution 53/243 on the Declaration and Programme of Action on a Culture of Peace in 1999.

The current President of the UNGA Ms Maria Fernanda Espinosa Garces, former Foreign Minister of Ecuador is convening on 13 September the UN High-Level Forum on the Culture of Peace underlining the importance the world body attaches to full and effective implementation of this forward-looking decision.

It was exactly on that date 20 years ago the UN took its most forward-looking stride in ensuring a peaceful planet for all of us since the Charter of the UN in 1945. The UN Charter arose out of the ashes of the Second World War and the UN Declaration and the Programme of Action on Culture of Peace was born in the aftermath of the long-drawn Cold War.

Simply put, the Culture of Peace as a concept means that every one of us needs to consciously make peace and nonviolence a part of our daily existence. We should not isolate peace as something separate or distant. We should know how to relate to one another without being aggressive, without being violent, without being disrespectful, without neglect, without prejudice.

It is important to realize that the absence of peace takes away the opportunities that we need to better ourselves, to prepare ourselves, to empower ourselves to face the challenges of our lives, individually and collectively.

It is also a positive, dynamic participatory process wherein “dialogue is encouraged and conflicts are solved in a spirit of mutual understanding and cooperation.”

Ambassador Anwarul Chowdhury

Each and every individual is important to the process of transformation required to secure the culture of peace in our world. Each person must be convinced that nonviolent, cooperative action is possible.

If a person succeeds in resolving a conflict in a nonviolent manner at any point in time, then this individual has made a big contribution to the world because this singular act has succeeded in transferring the spirit of non-violence and cooperation to another individual. When repeated, such a spirit will grow exponentially, a practice that will become easier each time the choice is made to face a situation, resolve a conflict non-violently.

On 16 December 1998, at a Security Council meeting on the maintenance of peace and security and post-conflict peace-building, I implored that “International peace and security can be best strengthened, not by actions of States alone, but by women and men through the inculcation of the culture of peace and non-violence in every human being and every sphere of activity. The objective of the culture of peace is the empowerment of people.”

As we were coming out of the Cold War, it dawned on us to see how best to take advantage of the end of that era of bitter rivalry and proxy wars and to make peace sustainable.

The Constitution of UNESCO says, “Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defenses of peace must be constructed.” The concept of the culture of peace started evolving in this spirit, to promote a change of values and behavior.

Soon after I became the Ambassador of Bangladesh to the United Nations in New York in 1996, I felt that the culture of peace is a marvelous concept that humanity needs to embrace. I took the lead in proposing in 1997 along with some other Ambassadors in a letter to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to include a specific, self-standing agenda item of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) on culture of peace.

A new agenda item on the culture of peace was thus agreed upon after considerable negotiating hurdles and the new item was allocated to the plenary of the General Assembly for discussion on an annual basis.

Under this item, UNGA adopted in 1997 a resolution to declare the year 2000 the “International Year for the Culture of Peace”, and in 1998, a resolution to declare the period from 2001 to 2010 the “International Decade for the Culture of Peace and Non-Violence for the Children of the World”.

On 13 September 1999, the United Nations adopted the Declaration and Programme of Action on the Culture of Peace, a monumental document that transcends boundaries, cultures, societies and nations.

It was an honour for me to Chair the nine-month long negotiations that led to the adoption of this historic norm-setting document that is considered as one of the most significant legacies of the United Nations that would endure generations.

I introduced the agreed text of that document (A/RES/53/243) on behalf of all Member States for adoption by the Assembly with its President Didier Opertti of Uruguay chairing the meeting. Through this landmark adoption, the General Assembly laid down humanity’s charter for the new approaching millennium.

To commemorate the 20th anniversary of that momentous action by the most universal global body in a “befitting manner” on 13 September 2019, the on-going 73rd session of the UN General Assembly adopted the resolution 73/126 on 12 December 2018 – with the co-sponsorship of 100 Member States led by Bangladesh – which requested “the President of the General Assembly to give special attention to the appropriate and befitting observance of the twentieth anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration and Programme of Action, which falls on 13 September 2019, by holding the high-level forum on that date, which will be an opportunity for renewing the commitments to strengthen further the global movement for the culture of peace.”

A significant aspect of the essential message as articulated in the UN documents effectively asserts that the “culture of peace is a process of individual, collective and institutional transformation.” Transformation is of the most essential relevance here.

The Programme of Action identifies eight specific areas which encourage actions at all levels – the individual, the family, the community, the nation, the region – and, of course, the global level. Though the Declaration and Programme of Action is an agreement among nations, governments, civil society, media and individuals are all identified in this document as key actors.

It is essential to remember that the culture of peace requires a change of our hearts, change of our mindset. The Culture of Peace can be achieved through simple ways of living, changing of our own behavior, changing how we relate to each other.

How do we build and promote the culture of peace? To turn the culture of peace into a global, universal movement, the most crucial element that is needed is for every one of us to be a true believer in peace and non-violence.

A lot can be achieved in promoting the culture of peace through individual resolve and action. By immersing ourselves in a mode of behaviour that supports and promotes peace, individual efforts will – over time – combine and unite, and peace, security and sustainability will emerge. This is the only way we shall achieve a just and sustainable peace in the world.

All educational institutions need to offer opportunities that prepare the students not only to live fulfilling lives but also to be responsible and productive citizens of the world. For that, educators need to introduce holistic and empowering curricula that cultivate the culture of peace in each and every young mind. Indeed, this should be more appropriately called “education for global citizenship”.

Such learning cannot be achieved without well-intentioned, sustained, and systematic peace education that leads the way to the culture of peace. If our minds could be likened to a computer, then education provides the software with which to “reboot” our priorities and actions away from violence, towards the culture of peace.

For this, I believe that early childhood affords a unique opportunity for us to sow the seeds of transition from the culture of war to the culture of peace. The events that a child experiences early in life, the education that this child receives, and the community activities and socio-cultural mindset in which a child is immersed all contribute to how values, attitudes, traditions, modes of behavior, and ways of life develop.

We need to use this window of opportunity to instil the rudiments that each individual needs to become agents of peace and non-violence from an early life. I would like to add that young people of today should embrace the culture of peace in a way that can not only shape their lives but can also shape the future of the world.

Let us – yes, all of us — embrace the culture of peace for the good of humanity, for the sustainability of our planet and for making our world a better place to live.

Ambassador Anwarul K. Chowdhury is Founder of the Global Movement for The Culture of Peace (GMCoP), Permanent Representative of Bangladesh (1996-2001) and Under-Secretary-General and High Representative of the United Nations (2002-2007)

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/09/culture-peace-takes-big-stride-un-observes-20th-anniversary-norm-setting-1999-decision/feed/0Kashmir: How Modi’s Aggressive ‘Hindutva’ Project has Brought India and Pakistan to the Brink – Againhttp://www.ipsnews.net/2019/09/kashmir-modis-aggressive-hindutva-project-brought-india-pakistan-brink/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=kashmir-modis-aggressive-hindutva-project-brought-india-pakistan-brink
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/09/kashmir-modis-aggressive-hindutva-project-brought-india-pakistan-brink/#respondMon, 09 Sep 2019 02:55:36 +0000Abdullah Yusufhttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=163160Abdullah Yusuf is a lecturer in politics at the University of Dundee.

The Indian government put an end to large scale protests by revoking the autonomy of Indian-administered Kashmir – a status provided for under the Indian Constitution. Thousands of troops were deployed and the valley region faced unprecedented lockdown. Credit: Umer Asif/IPS

By Abdullah YusufSep 9 2019 (IPS)

August is immensely important in the history of the Asian subcontinent, marking the month that India and Pakistan gained independence from the British in 1947. Now, in 2019, it has once again proved momentous, when, ten days before India’s Independence day celebrations, prime minister Narendra Modi’s government revoked the autonomy of Indian-administered Kashmir – a status provided for under the Indian Constitution.

This latest move was a manifesto pledge from Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which claims that Kashmir’s autonomy has hindered its development while fostering an area of thriving terrorism and smuggling.

Soon, thousands of troops were deployed and the valley region faced unprecedented lockdown. Experts say that Modi’s move to tether the Muslim majority of Kashmir is a gamble that could trigger conflict with Pakistan while reigniting an insurgency that has already cost tens of thousands of lives.

Kashmir: a brief history

Until 1947, Kashmir was a territorially well-defined and functional state that had existed for a century before its seizure by the British in 1846. The British decolonisation of the subcontinent in 1947 was instrumental in creating disorder that pushed Kashmir into a repeated cycle of war and stalemate between Pakistan and India, which have both claimed the region as sovereign territory for the last 70 years.

Today, Kashmir’s geopolitical position and glacial water reserves – which provide fresh water and hydro-electric power to millions – add an extra dimension to the existing sectarian and ideological conflict between India and Pakistan over this small northern region.

The Kashmir issue has resulted in three wars between these two countries – in 1947, 1965 and 1999 – triggering numerous UN Security Council Resolutions – which unequivocally call for the Kashmiris’ right to self-determination.

Modi’s Hindu nationalist project

Many within the region feel that Modi’s BJP is brazenly trying to change Kashmir’s ethnic composition to disadvantage India’s Muslim minority by encouraging more Hindus into the region. Since the revocation of Article 370 (which assured the region’s autonomy), Indian Kashmiri leaders who vehemently opposed the decision – including two former chief ministers – have been sent to jail.

Modi’s government has a history of stoking tensions between Hindus and Muslims, with its political rule now focused on “Hindutva”, which translates roughly as “Hindu-ness”, and reframes Hinduism as an identity rather than a theology or religion.

Modi has fostered Hindu nationalism through anti-Islamic rhetoric, accusing Muslim men of attempting to change India’s demographics by seducing Hindu women, as well as encouraging lynching of Muslims falsely accused of eating beef (from the sacred Hindu cow) in BJP controlled states. Clearly, these are tactics designed to expand the notion of Hindutva and further isolate the Muslim population within India. Targeting Kashmir is a crucial part of the strategy.

Dangerous tensions and nuclear options

In the wake of India’s decision to revoke Kashmir’s special status, there are two key questions.

Second, how is the situation affecting the already tense relations between India and Pakistan? India’s land grab comes just five months after a breakdown in relations following claims by India that a Pakistani-based suicide bomber killed 44 Indian soldiers in the Kashmir region, leading to airstrikes by both sides. The situation threatens to reignite this conflict with both countries cautioning the world about the nuclear option.

Addressing a joint session of Pakistan’s parliament on August 6, prime minister Imran Khan briefed lawmakers on the steps his government had taken towards peace in the region. But he maintained the situation in Indian-occupied Kashmir would deteriorate and its neighbour would blame and attack Pakistan.

Days later, Indian defence minister Rajnath Singh stated that India is committed to “no first use” of nuclear weapons, but future policy is dependent on the ever-evolving circumstances. These sentiments have led to international debate over the possibility of nuclear weapons being unleashed.

Parallels with East Timor

With this nuclear threat ever present, the situation in Kashmir is now one of the most dangerous in the world. Since the two countries have consistently failed to make any progress, external help from the international community and the UN is crucial in resolving the conflict and preventing further escalation.

As the world witnessed in the case of East Timor in 1999, independence from Indonesia after two decades of bloodshed was achieved following a referendum held under the stewardship of the UN. This result was not accepted by Indonesia, which launched a scorched-earth campaign, killing more than 1,500 Timorese, displacing nearly half the population, and razing much of East Timor to the ground.

The subsequent progression towards independence and peacebuilding was facilitated by external bodies such as the UN-mandated International Force in East Timor and the Transitional Administration in East Timor, underscoring the importance of support from both the UN and the international community.

The UN didn’t achieve success overnight, but endured through increasing international pressure, combined with a change in the Suharto government. Soon, Indonesia found itself falling out of favour with the international community.

There are parallels here for the Kashmir situation. Although progress may be slow while Modi’s populist BJP remains in power, pressure from the international community would likely go a long way towards pulling both countries back from the brink. In the meantime, while Modi tries to remake India in the BJP’s Hindutva image, for Kashmiris the struggle for self-determination goes on.

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/09/kashmir-modis-aggressive-hindutva-project-brought-india-pakistan-brink/feed/0Zimbabwe’s ex-President Robert Mugabe Leaves a Mixed Legacyhttp://www.ipsnews.net/2019/09/zimbabwes-ex-president-robert-mugabe-leaves-mixed-legacy/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=zimbabwes-ex-president-robert-mugabe-leaves-mixed-legacy
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/09/zimbabwes-ex-president-robert-mugabe-leaves-mixed-legacy/#respondSat, 07 Sep 2019 02:02:02 +0000Busani Bafanahttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=163135Former Zimbabwe strongman Robert Mugabe, who died this week, aged 95, leaves a mixed and divisive legacy. Mugabe – the oldest African leader when he was removed from power in November 2017 – died of an undisclosed illness in a hospital in Singapore on Sept. 6. Once a revered hero who liberated Zimbabwe from the […]

Former Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe in 2013 pictured here at a Southern African Development Community heads of state summit in Malawi where he was given a standing ovation. Mugabe died of an undisclosed illness on September 6, 2019 in Singapore. Credit: Kervin Victor/IPS

By Busani BafanaBULAWAYO, Zimbabwe, Sep 7 2019 (IPS)

Former Zimbabwe strongman Robert Mugabe, who died this week, aged 95, leaves a mixed and divisive legacy.

Mugabe – the oldest African leader when he was removed from power in November 2017 – died of an undisclosed illness in a hospital in Singapore on Sept. 6.

Once a revered hero who liberated Zimbabwe from the brutal colonial rule in 1980, Mugabe ruled the country for 37 years before he was deposed in a military coup in 2017. Mugabe’s once-trusted comrade and enforcer, who later turned foe, Emerson Mnangagwa, became president in a 2018 election which was disputed by the opposition.

Describing Mugabe as the iconic leader of the struggle for national liberation, Mnangagwa paid a glowing tribute to Mugabe who sacked him as vice-president in 2017.

“A pan Africanist fighter, Comrade Mugabe bequeaths a rich an indelible legacy of tenacious adherence to principle on the collective rights of Africa and African(s) in general and in particular the rights of the people of Zimbabwe for whom he gave his all to help free,” Mnangagwa said in tribute broadcast hours after he confirmed Mugabe’s death on his official twitter account.

The fighter Mugabe was known for many things, including securing and protecting his own hold on power after he became the country’s Executive President in 1987, the same year he forged an uneasy unity accord between the country’s main political parties, the Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front (Zanu PF) and the Patriotic Front Zimbabwe African People’s Union (PF Zapu).

“There is no doubt that Robert Mugabe will go down as a colossus in Zimbabwean history,” David Coltart, former Education Minister and human rights activist, told IPS.

“He has a remarkable impact on Zimbabwe both positively and negatively and his positive legacy is that he fought a bitter struggle with Joshua Nkomo to end white minority rule that will be an enduring legacy. The other positive legacy is he expanded a quality education to all Zimbabweans and he must be given credit for that. He built on the legacy of Garfield and Grace Todd from the 1950s and expanded education.”

Coltart concedes to Mugabe’s less than illustrious legacy, noting that Mugabe perpetuated the violence of the former minority white Rhodesian Front government by disrespecting the rule of law and constitutionalism, growing corruption, abuse of office and the destruction of the Zimbabwean economy which forced hundreds of thousands to leave this southern African nation.

“History will tell on balance whether his legacy is more positive than negative,” Coltart said. “There is no doubt he was revered within Zimbabwe and revered throughout Africa. Indeed one could argue that he was more popular in the rest of Africa than he was in Zimbabwe himself. There is no doubt he mellowed in the final few years of his life, he mellowed in the inclusive government and reached out to the [opposition] MDC [Movement for Democratic Change] and the country settled to a certain extent and the country grew.”

“As Education Minister I worked well with him and we had a good functional relationship and we managed to stabilise the education sector and get it on a growth trajectory again, but of course during that period corruption continued to flourish in the country and after 2003 he allowed corruption to continue and allowed the constitution to be breached in the many ways that it was,” he said.

From liberator to dictator

Praised as a nation builder at independence when he extended the hand of reconciliation across the racial divide, Mugabe was not only a political liberator per se. He sought to liberate his country from poverty too, promoting investment in education, social welfare, industrialisation and food security.

In 1998, Mugabe was awarded the 100,000-dollar Africa Prize for Leadership for the Sustainable End of Hunger given by the Hunger project, a New York global aid organisation in recognition of his stewardship in Zimbabwe’s agriculture success story. The country’s agricultural programmes were praised for having ”pointed the way not only for Zimbabwe but for the entire African continent in fighting against hunger”, the organisation had said at the time.

Tragically, Zimbabwe is today no longer the food security champion in part as a result of its well-meaning but poorly executed land reform programme in 2000.

But Mugabe was a gifted orator with a quick wit and memorable sound bites. The fight for land and self-rule became hallmarks of this tenure.

“We fought for our land, we have fought for our sovereignty, small as we are, we have won our independence and we are prepared to shed our blood…so Blair keep your England and let me keep my Zimbabwe. We are still exchanging blows with the British government,” Mugabe once said in a famous spat with the then British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

David Moore, researcher and political economist at the University of Johannesburg, said Mugabe manipulated the very deep factions and divisions both in Zimbabwean society and the political system to his advantage, starting from the formation of Zanu PF in 1963. Mugabe, Moore told IPS, had a knack of getting people to do his dirty work and finding allies when he was in trouble. For example, Mugabe made alliances with the war veterans in 1997 that pushed him onto the fast track land reform and triggered an economic meltdown that the country has battled to recover from.

“We cannot forget the Gukurahundi where he destroyed a political party and ended up with almost a genocide evolving from that, so l mean anybody who says he is a hero is really missing the point,” said Moore. Gukurahundi is remembered as a series of massacres on civilians and members and officials of Joshua Nkomo’s Zapu that were carried about by the Zimbabwe National Army.

Moore added that this ability to manipulate and work out and exacerbate these factions kept Mugabe in power and Zanu PF unified to a degree even though the unification was based on subterfuge, lying, deceit and playing groups against each other.

“It is a complicated and contradictory legacy how this shy, almost paranoid guy managed to stay on top of the heap and created also a culture of corruption, even though he would say, we need a leadership code,” Moore said.

The emergence of the political party MDC led by trade unionist Morgan Tsvangirai in 1999 unnerved Mugabe. Mugabe’s turned to violence in the elections in 2000, 2005 and 2008 of which the opposition claims to have won outright.

Violence in the form of beatings, torture and of late kidnappings became emblematic of Mugabe’s intolerance of dissenters. Individuals and civil society were not spared.

Human rights activist an Mugabe critic, Jenni Williams, was a victim. As the national coordinator of Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA), she was arrested a number of times as the organisation continues to pursue a “non-violent struggle for socio-economic rights”.

“Unfortunately Mugabe’s leaves a legacy of repression and persecution which overshadows any good he may have done,” Williams said.

“I find it hard to mourn a man who caused me such personal persecution and suffering. Under his rule and orders I faced arbitrary arrest, inhuman and degrading treatment and constant persecution by prosecution. I am just one of many who suffered the mayhem of his rule and hatred of the people of Matabeleland leading to mass murder.”

Williams says the dictatorship system Mugabe nurtured is still in place and no real development and economic recovery can be achieved without serious reforms at all levels. Therefore poverty levels are systemically increased out of cruelty.

Burying Mugabe will close a chapter in the life of founding figure but the economic and political fortunes triggered from his rein are worsening.

It is not only food that Zimbabwe is in short supply of these days. Many other things, such as lack of health care and education, can be traced to the ill-informed policies that Mugabe enforced in securing his hold on power.

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]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/09/zimbabwes-ex-president-robert-mugabe-leaves-mixed-legacy/feed/0Reimagining ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ as Social Commentary on Inequalities in Asia-Pacifichttp://www.ipsnews.net/2019/08/reimagining-crazy-rich-asians-social-commentary-inequalities-asia-pacific/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=reimagining-crazy-rich-asians-social-commentary-inequalities-asia-pacific
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/08/reimagining-crazy-rich-asians-social-commentary-inequalities-asia-pacific/#respondFri, 30 Aug 2019 13:05:10 +0000Srinivas Tata and Jaco Cilliershttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=163054Srinivas Tata is Director, Social Development Division, UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP)

Jaco Cilliers is Head of Asia-Pacific Policy and Programmes
UNDP Bangkok Regional Hub

It’s 1962, and in a modest Hong Kong neighborhood, a poetic love story unfolds. Filmed almost twenty years ago, Wong Kar-wai’s seminal movie In the Mood for Love captured the world’s imagination about lifestyle in the region.

A lower-middle class existence had never looked better. Fast forward to 2018 and a new movie, set in today’s Singapore captures the world’s attention, but for very different reasons.

“Crazy Rich Asians” mixes Asian family values, education and prosperity with a consumeristic facade of jewelry, clothes and luxury travel. The result is entertaining, yet thought-provoking: when did this seismic socio-economic shift take place? When did Asia become so prosperous, yet so unequal?

Increases in income inequality have coincided with a narrower concentration of wealth in the Asia-Pacific region, now home to the greatest number of billionaires in the world. Their combined net worth is seven times the combined GDP of the region’s least developed countries.

Governments have committed to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030 and aim to fulfill the promise of “leaving no one behind”. Nonetheless, research reveals a worrying trend toward greater inequality, not just in incomes, but also in access to basic services — educational attainment, health, clean energy and basic sanitation.

Gender is, perhaps, the most important lens through which these stark inequalities in access to health, basic services and rights can be understood. And they are most likely to be left behind. In addition, natural disasters, which have become more frequent and intense, disproportionately affect the poorest. Due to their socio-economic plight, their capacity to recover is also seriously weakened.

Putting “Leave no one behind” into practice

Inequalities are not inevitable – they ‘stem from policies, laws, cultural norms, corruption, and other issues that can be addressed.’ To be addressed, they require a range of well-coordinated policy interventions. If left unchecked, inequalities ultimately threaten social cohesion, economic growth and environmental sustainability.

Several countries have prioritized investments in education, health and social protection to achieve more equitable development outcomes. Mongolia, for instance, now allocates 21 per cent of public expenditure toward social protection with a specific focus on children. This has resulted in a significant reduction in stunting.

Fiscal measures are equally fundamental in addressing inequality. Tax to GDP ratios are low in a number of countries across the region, especially in South Asia. Progressive taxation remains a critical tool for wealth and income redistribution.

Some countries are taking steps to reform their tax systems while others are finding innovative and creative ways to boost venue and enforce tax collection. In 2016, for instance, Thailand introduced an inheritance tax and China is planning to do so in the coming years.

Labour market policies aimed at improving working conditions, raising the minimum wage, and offering unemployment benefits can act as a buffer to protect the poorer segments of society.

While some countries in the region, especially in Southeast Asia, have raised the minimum wage, more comprehensive measures need to be taken. With the emergence and adoption of new technologies—automation, AI, and machine-learning—many low-skilled jobs and tasks are being eliminated.

Adopting and embracing new technologies would need to be viewed through the broader lens of achieving the SDG and leaving no one behind.

Emerging trends, such as the fourth industrial revolution and climate change have wider cross-border ramifications. Countering the negative impact on inequalities will require collective and coordinated responses at the national, regional and global levels. It is apparent that a range of pro-active actions need to be taken by policymakers in the region to tackle inequality. Business as usual will just not do it this time.

The producers of the comedy blockbuster probably did not intend to stir debate on socio-economic inequalities. Nonetheless, by showing us “Crazy Rich Asians” enjoying their lavish lifestyles, they also managed to hold up a mirror and make us think about the striking contradictions lived everyday by millions.

If the region is to continue to be a growth engine for the world and a centre of global economic dynamism, it will have to show that it is not just a place where billionaires feel at home, but also a region that is charting a more secure and sustainable future for those left behind.

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/08/reimagining-crazy-rich-asians-social-commentary-inequalities-asia-pacific/feed/0Triumph of the Right is Changing the World Orderhttp://www.ipsnews.net/2019/08/triumph-right-changing-world-order/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=triumph-right-changing-world-order
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/08/triumph-right-changing-world-order/#respondThu, 29 Aug 2019 13:10:01 +0000Katharina Hofmann De Mourahttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=163039Katharina Hofmann de Moura holds a diploma in political science from the Free University (FU) Berlin. She currently leads the Brazil office of Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES). Before that she was the head of the FES Mozambique (2011-2016) and worked with the FES in Berlin and Shanghai.

Supporters of president-elect Jair Bolsonaro celebrated his triumph in the early hours of Oct. 29, in front of the former captain's residence on the west side of Rio de Janeiro. The far-right candidate garnered 55.13 percent of the vote and began his four-year presidency on Jan. 1, 2019. Credit: Fernando Frazão/Agencia Brasil

By Katharina Hofmann De MouraSAO PAULO, Brazil, Aug 29 2019 (IPS)

The crisis of regional and multilateral institutions goes hand in hand with the international rise of right-wing populism. In the US, the UK, Russia, Italy, Poland, Hungary, Turkey, the Philippines and Brazil, we are experiencing the rise of right-wing populist politicians who throw headline-grabbing barbs at global compromises and the negotiating processes of supranational institutions such as the UN.

The more countries succumb to right-wing populism, the lower the chances of curbing climate change and social inequality and triggering the transition to a sustainable economic model.

While criticism of economic globalisation came predominantly from the left in the past, it’s currently becoming the core narrative of the Right. All over the world, right-wing populists are making protectionism the key theme of their regime.

They are using frustration with the social upheavals of neoliberal globalisation as a narrative. Job losses due to relocations, the decline of whole industrial sites, concerns about uncontrolled immigration and the search for identity in a multipolar world are skilfully exploited. The result is a historic, authoritarian-style populist ‘backlash’.

Despite their anti-globalisation rhetoric, however, the right-wing populists are not convincing protagonists against free trade. Rather, they are usually aligned with or even part of economic and financial elites. Their target group is the lower middle class who often does not actually benefit from their policies.

People in this electoral group feel that they are net losers from globalisation. In the populists’ promises, they see compensation for the perceived and sometimes real loss of national sovereignty.

Katharina Hofmann De Moura

Right-wing populists are making inroads into the centres of political power because they focus on the issues that are causing uncertainty and growing inequality: fear of downward social mobility, unemployment and lack of prospects.

The globalisation of right-wing populism

Alignment of these global right-wingers is progressing apace. For instance, current Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro based his election campaign on Donald Trump’s strategy. ‘The Movement’, headed by Steve Bannon, Trump’s former election campaign advisor, has successfully forged links in Europe and Latin America as well as the US.

The formula is always the same: building up the national economy as a bastion against foreign influence while attacking the left for supposedly neglecting the interests of the majority of the population in favour of a ‘politics of identity’ geared towards minorities and a snobbish urban electorate.

The Western model of liberal democracy, so heavily influenced by Germany in the post-war era, is visibly ailing.

The right-wing populists rely on dividing society and pit various population groups and their interests against each other. Brazil provides a powerful example of this. ‘Only vegans are interested in nature,’ was Bolsonaro’s response to accusations of large-scale environmental destruction.

Accordingly, ‘America First’ has become ‘Brasil Primeiro’. The focus on neoliberal economic policy is underpinned with contemptuous remarks against minorities, extending as far as incitement to violence. Society is extremely polarised and the centre is fading away.

In a WhatsApp campaign focused on inadequate public safety and spiralling corruption, Bolsonaro managed to win the elections in the largest and, until the controversial removal of Dilma Roussef in 2016, most progressively governed country in Latin America.

The Brazilian election campaign is a good example of how right-wing movements use ‘social’ media to get closer to the people. They convey a sense of direct influence and apparent power and portray themselves on Twitter as ‘down-to-earth’.

Bolsonaro denies the authenticity of satellite images that show how deforestation of the Amazon has doubled since he took office, and summarily dismissed the director of the renowned INPE institute (Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais) when it published the corresponding data.

Historical denial is also part of the package, such his ‘own account’ of the military dictatorship, shamelessly praising torture. Right-wing populist movements manipulate citizens and employ an anti-intellectualism, a hatred of the so-called ‘elite’ – which obviously means the educational rather than the economic elite.

The right-wing populist is a self-styled ‘straightforward man’ of the people. The anti-politician is coming to the fore. Ideological confrontation is the aim, not least in order to deflect from the results of his own economic policy – Brazil remains mired in an economic crisis, with growth of just 0.8 per cent.

The rise of right-wing populism is exacerbating the crisis of the international order. The unprecedented rise of China is weakening Europe’s position as a global democratic power, while also challenging the decades-long formula of ‘democracy combined with economic growth’.

Economic development just seems to be achievable more quickly without democracy, as democratic processes require votes and compromises and everything is based on dialogue. That’s why many countries in the South admire the rise of China and not division-wracked Europe.

The Western model of liberal democracy, so heavily influenced by Germany in the post-war era, is visibly ailing. Many analysts are already talking of the end of the liberal international order. Pressure on the European states will grow, as the upcoming emerging nations show no ambitions to assume regional or multilateral responsibility.

For instance, the Brazilian president says, ‘The Amazon is ours, not yours,’ and brooks no criticism from Europe. No international responsibility and no external interference is the guiding principle of authoritarian rulers.

Although it is currently weakened, Brazil has a well-organised left-wing civil society as well as trade unions and the Workers’ Party.

Gone is the optimistic era of global governance that only recently was largely shaped by the BRICS alliance (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa). BRICS embodied the ‘rise of the South’, aimed at building a better world on an equal footing with the North.

The euphoria of multilateralism has since faded away. Whereas there were still hopes in the early 2000s that the emerging nations would become ‘anchor countries’, taking responsibility for regional integration and democratisation, most of their heads of state are now populists.

They too are looking for new alliances, but under different premises. So, the world is indeed converging, but only because of a growth in populism in Europe rather than an upturn in democracy in the South. Whole new alliances are being forged.

For instance, on the UN Human Rights Council, Bolsonaro is backing the Arab nations, which criticise the term ‘gender’ and jointly aim to stand up for ‘traditional family values’.

So what’s left for the left?

Left-wing governments cannot resolve this dilemma in the short term. The left’s partly self-inflicted loss of power because of its naive embracing of globalised free trade has been underestimated.

Now, business owners like Blackrock and the large multinationals have hit on a hitherto unknown form of capital accumulation that produces a form of wealth redolent of feudal times. Big corporations control social media, enabling them to build up their own influence even more and further undermine that of politicians (a phenomenon now known as ‘corporate capture’).

According to research by the Folha de São Paulo newspaper, owners of large stores and restaurant chains paid 12 million reais (€3 million) per WhatsApp campaign to service providers, ensuring mass distribution of lots of fake news against the Workers’ Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores) in the Brazilian election campaign. Bolsonaro’s supporters then forwarded this fake news to their individual contact lists in a snowball process.

Democratic politicians were no match for the right in terms of their method – but that’s alright, as it is illegal. Before the 2018 elections, election campaign financing by companies was banned for the first time in Brazil’s history. The above-mentioned business owners had to pay fines, yet the elections were declared valid.

However, the Brazilian left is using social media to mobilise protests, for example against cuts to the education budget and health and social programmes, against liberalisation of weapons laws, in favour of women’s and LGTBI rights, and against an unfair pension reform.

Although it is currently weakened, Brazil has a well-organised left-wing civil society as well as trade unions and the Workers’ Party. And they will not readily give into right-wing populism.

Katharina Hofmann de Moura holds a diploma in political science from the Free University (FU) Berlin. She currently leads the Brazil office of Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES). Before that she was the head of the FES Mozambique (2011-2016) and worked with the FES in Berlin and Shanghai.

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/08/triumph-right-changing-world-order/feed/0Hong Kong Protests: A Peaceful and Violent Weekendhttp://www.ipsnews.net/2019/08/hong-kong-protests-peaceful-violent-weekend/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=hong-kong-protests-peaceful-violent-weekend
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/08/hong-kong-protests-peaceful-violent-weekend/#respondSat, 24 Aug 2019 18:28:01 +0000Laurel Chorhttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=162973As protests in Hong Kong continue over the weekend, thousands of people joined hands to form a human chain that stretched across the city on Friday. It was yet another demonstration – this one entirely peaceful – in a series of protests that have rocked the former British colony for the past 12 weeks. The […]

While standing to form the Hong Kong Way on Aug. 23, Protesters cover their right eye in reference to a woman who received a serious injury to her face, which was allegedly caused by police shooting a rubber bullet at her head. One woman (R) holds a sign urging the U.S. government to pass the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, which was introduced by Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ.) and Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL). Credit: Laurel Chor/IPS

By Laurel ChorHONG KONG, Aug 24 2019 (IPS)

As protests in Hong Kong continue over the weekend, thousands of people joined hands to form a human chain that stretched across the city on Friday. It was yet another demonstration – this one entirely peaceful – in a series of protests that have rocked the former British colony for the past 12 weeks.

The “Hong Kong Way” protest was inspired by the 30th anniversary of the Baltic Way, a 600-km human chain formed across Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia, which at the time were a part of the Soviet Union. Two million people stood hand-in-hand that day to protest Soviet rule.

Yesterday on Aug. 23, organisers estimated that 135,000 people participated in the Hong Kong version, which stretched 60 kilometres across both Hong Kong Island and Kowloon. Hundreds even made their way up the iconic Lion Rock Mountain, lighting up the peak with cell phone lights.

The human chain marked a shift in tone in the protests, which were often violent. Today, on Aug. 24 protestors reportedly hurled objects and gasoline bombs at police, with police firing tear gas in response.

The Hong Kong protests were sparked by a proposed extradition bill that would allow suspects to be sent to China and possibly face an unjust trial system, making people fearful that Beijing would exploit the law for political reasons. The demonstrations have been further fuelled by anger towards the police for its excessive use of force and protesters’ key demands now include complete withdrawal of the proposed extradition bill, as well as genuine universal suffrage.

Earlier this month, two mainland Chinese men were held and beaten at the Hong Kong airport, where protests had disrupted flights for two days in a row. After the incidents, Beijing strongly condemned the protesters and compared the attacks to “terrorism”. On the other hand, organisations including Amnesty International and the United Nations have repeatedly criticised the Hong Kong Police Force for its violent methods to control the protests.

Mindful of public opinion, protesters took a decidedly more peaceful direction after those incidents. First, they apologised for the airport protests. Then, a peaceful march was organised last weekend, with an estimated 1.7 million attending, echoing two similar marches in June that had attracted one million, then two million a week later – an impressive feat in a city of only 7.4 million residents.

Organisers of the Hong Kong Way issued a statement highlighting Hong Kong protesters’ solidarity: “We are no longer divided into ‘peaceful’ or ‘frontline’ protesters – we are joined as one in our resolve to fight for our freedom.”

Protests were scheduled for the weekend and are set to continue for the rest of the month. The Hong Kong government has yet to meet with protesters and has not caved in on any of their demands, leading the city to wonder how its biggest political crisis will ever be resolved.

The Hong Kong protests were sparked by a proposed extradition bill that would allow suspects to be sent to China and possibly face an unjust trial system, making people fearful that Beijing would exploit the law for political reasons. This dated photo is from a protest rally last month. Courtesy: Studio Incendo/CC By 2.0

Standing in front of the famous Victoria Harbor on Aug. 23, protesters cover their right eye in reference to a woman who received a serious injury to her face, which was allegedly caused by police shooting a rubber bullet at her head, as they hold their cell phone lights in the other hand. Credit: Laurel Chor/IPS

A protester hugs a stranger standing in Sham Shui Po on Aug. 23 as part of the Hong Kong Way, the participants of which included families with children. Credit: Laurel Chor/IPS

Protesters stand in front of the Hong Kong Space Museum as part of the Hong Kong Way, a 60-kilometre human chain on Aug. 23. Credit: Laurel Chor/IPS

Protesters – often not knowing those standing next to them – link up to form the Hong Kong Way in Sham Shui Po on Aug. 23, while chanting slogans encouraging Hong Kong protesters and demanding the “liberation” of the city. Credit: Laurel Chor/IPS

Protesters forming the Hong Kong Way hold up their cell phone lights while standing on a busy road in Sham Shui Po, where double decker buses often passed through, on Aug. 23. Credit: Laurel Chor/IPS

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]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/08/hong-kong-protests-peaceful-violent-weekend/feed/0Amazon Fires Heat Up Political Crisis in Brazilhttp://www.ipsnews.net/2019/08/amazon-fires-heat-political-crisis-brazil/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=amazon-fires-heat-political-crisis-brazil
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/08/amazon-fires-heat-political-crisis-brazil/#respondFri, 23 Aug 2019 23:15:32 +0000Mario Osavahttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=162960August is the month of major political crises in Brazil, but no one suspected that an environmental issue would be the trigger for the storms threatening the government of President Jair Bolsonaro, just eight months into his term. Protests against the fires sweeping Brazil’s Amazon rainforest are spreading around the world, especially in Europe, and […]

The fire reached the banks of the Madeira River, near Porto Velho, capital of the state of Rondônia, in northwestern Brazil, where there were 4,715 fires from January to Aug. 14 this year, according to monitoring by the Amazon Environmental Research Institute. Credit: Courtesy of biologist Daniely Felix

By Mario OsavaRIO DE JANEIRO, Aug 23 2019 (IPS)

August is the month of major political crises in Brazil, but no one suspected that an environmental issue would be the trigger for the storms threatening the government of President Jair Bolsonaro, just eight months into his term.

Protests against the fires sweeping Brazil’s Amazon rainforest are spreading around the world, especially in Europe, and are beginning to be held in Brazil, where they are expected to rage over the weekend in at least 47 cities, according to the Climate Observatory, a coalition of environmental organisations.

“Bolsonaro Out!” is the cry heard in the streets of Barcelona, London, Paris and other European cities, and in Brazilian ones as well.

The increased use of fire to clear land for agriculture, since July, seems to be a reaction to the insistence with which the president and his Environment Minister Ricardo Salles have insulted the environmental movement and dismantled the system of environmental protection, reviving the appetite of landholders, especially cattle ranchers, for clearing land.

The international press has widely condemned the government’s anti-environmentalist attitudes, as have several world leaders, making Brazil the new climate change villain.

“The crisis became political because of the response by Bolsonaro, who, instead of announcing measures to address the problem, decided to politicise it,” Adriana Ramos, public policy advisor for the Social-Environmental Institute (ISA), told IPS.

The first reaction by the far-right president was to blame the forest fires on nongovernmental organisations (NGOs), such as ISA – precisely the ones that have worked the hardest to promote environmental policies and laws in this megadiverse country of 201 million people.

Brazil’s Amazon jungle covers 3.3 million square kilometres, accounting for 60 percent of the entire rainforest, which is shared by eight South American countries.

Map of fires in Mato Gosso, the Brazilian Amazon state most affected by fires, and the largest soybean producer. The highest concentration occurs in the center-north of the state, the area with the highest production of soybeans, corn and cotton. In the extreme northwest is Colniza, the municipality that registered the largest number of fires, and which illustrates the encroachment by agriculture in the rainforest: Courtesy of the Life Science Institute

The stance he took was a clear indication that Bolsonaro does not intend to assume his responsibilities, but will look for culprits instead, as he has done on many issues, from economics to public safety, since he became president on Jan. 1.

“Bolsonaro does not need NGOs to smear Brazil’s image around the world,” says a communiqué protesting his remarks, signed by 183 Brazilian civil society organisations.

This is “an international crisis,” said French President Emmanuel Macron, who announced that he would address the issue at the Aug. 24-26 summit of the Group of Seven (G7) advanced economies in Biarritz, in southern France.

Both France and Ireland have made it clear that they will not ratify the free trade agreement between the European Union and the Southern Common Market (Mercosur – Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay) if the Brazilian government continues to violate its environmental and climate commitments.

Comparative table on fires with respect to the same period in 2018, with a cumulative increase this year of 87 percent until Aug. 19 August and 205 percent between Jul. 15 and Aug. 19. Credit: Courtesy of the Life Science Institute

The exponential increase in the use of fire to clear land is a reflection of the expanding deforestation, according to the non-governmental Amazon Environmental Research Institute (Ipam).

This year, as of Aug. 14, the number of fires rose to 32,728, 60 percent more than the average for the past three years. Drought, a common factor in this destruction, does not explain the fires on this occasion, as the current dry season is less severe than in previous years.

In central-western Mato Grosso, Brazil’s largest soybean-producing state, there were 7,765 fires, compared to just over 4,500 in the previous two years, when there were strong droughts.

Colniza, the most affected municipality in Mato Grosso, is an example of the expansion of the agricultural frontier.

Vinicius Silgueiro, geotechnology coordinator at the local Life Centre Institute (ICV), told IPS that the fires were set both to “clean up” the area deforested in previous months and to “weaken” the primary forests for subsequent deforestation.

“A sensation of impunity and the dismantling of the institutions for environmental oversight and conservation provoked the resurgence of the slash-and-burn technique,” he said.

The cutting in half of the budget of the Prev-Fire, a system for preventing and fighting forest fires, was one of the factors, he said.

“In addition, the presidential discourse and his attacks” on the government agencies that monitor and combat deforestation “encouraged” the sectors that destroy forests illegally, he argued.

The effects are not limited to the Amazon jungle. Clouds of smoke darkened the skies over São Paulo on the afternoon of Aug. 19 and burn particles were identified in local rain, about 2,000 kilometres from the probable sources: Santa Cruz de la Sierra in Bolivia, or the Brazilian states of Mato Grosso in the southwest and Rondônia in the northwest.

São Paulo, a metropolis of more than 22 million people, has been suffering from this kind of air pollution for more than a decade, due to the burning of extensive sugarcane fields in nearby municipalities in the interior of the southeastern state.

The smoky air over Porto Velho, capital of Rondônia, an Amazonian state in the northwest of Brazil, on the border with Bolivia, where deforestation is also intense. Particulate air pollution from the fires is affecting health throughout the Amazon and even reached São Paulo, some 2,000 km southeast, on Aug. 19. Credit: Courtesy of biologist Daniely Felix

But the ban on the use of fire in the harvesting of sugarcane and its mechanisation eliminated that factor of respiratory illnesses, which has now reemerged as a result of the fires in the distant rainforest.

Fires also occur in other ecosystems, especially the Cerrado, Brazil’s vast central savannah, where drought even causes spontaneous combustion of vegetation.

But the Amazon jungle is indispensable for feeding the rains in the areas of greatest agricultural production in south-central Brazil.

That’s why big agricultural exporters are now calling for government measures to curb deforestation. They fear trade sanctions by importers, especially in Europe, which at this stage seem unavoidable.

The agribusiness sector was an important base of support for Bolsonaro’s triumph in the October 2018 elections.

It has a strong parliamentary “ruralist” bloc and mainly consists of anachronistic segments seeking profits by expanding their property rather than boosting productivity, such as extensive cattle ranching, which is encroaching on the rainforest and indigenous lands, undermining environmental conservation.

The devastation of the Amazon “was foreseeable” since the electoral campaign, because of Bolsonaro’s discourse in favor of “predatory exploitation of forests and indigenous reserves,” said Juarez Pezzuti, a professor in the Nucleus of High Amazon Studies at the Federal University of Pará (UFPA).

“We, the researchers of the Participatory Biodiversity Monitoring programme, can no longer visit study areas” in the middle stretch of the Xingu River Basin, in the Eastern Amazon, “because it is not safe,” he told IPS from the northern state of Pará.

The “grileiros,” the people who invade public lands, destroy forests and threaten to attack local residents and researchers, he said.

This environmental crisis has political consequences.

Since January, Bolsonaro has lashed out at the widest range of sectors, upsetting large swathes of society, including students, scientists, lawyers, artists and activists of all kinds.

At any moment one of his outbursts could become the last straw. The environmental issue could seriously damage his popularity, which has been declining since the start of his term, as protecting the Amazon rainforest has the support of a majority of Brazilians as well as much of global society.

“Let’s wait and see what the taskforce created by the government can do to address the problem. We have to give it the benefit of the doubt for the sake of the greater collective interest” – the conservation of the rainforest, said ISA’s Ramos, from Brasilia.

As he saw his image threatened due to the fires in the Amazon, Bolsonaro decided to install a “crisis cabinet” of his ministers to discuss measures against the use of fire to clear land, which has upset people throughout Brazil and around the world this month.

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/08/amazon-fires-heat-political-crisis-brazil/feed/0Revitalizing Indigenous Languages Is Criticalhttp://www.ipsnews.net/2019/08/revitalizing-indigenous-languages-critical/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=revitalizing-indigenous-languages-critical
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/08/revitalizing-indigenous-languages-critical/#respondMon, 12 Aug 2019 11:05:21 +0000Lakshi De Vass Gunawardenahttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=162829Being fluent in a world language is a desirable skill in modern day society. However, some languages are suffering and in danger of extinction — namely those of the indigenous peoples. “There are between 6,000 and 7,000 world languages in the world today,” Brian Keane, rapporteur of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues said in […]

Being fluent in a world language is a desirable skill in modern day society. However, some languages are suffering and in danger of extinction — namely those of the indigenous peoples.

“There are between 6,000 and 7,000 world languages in the world today,” Brian Keane, rapporteur of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues said in his keynote speech last week, revealing that half of them are expected to go extinct by 2100. As a result, more than 50% of the worlds indigenous peoples are in danger of losing their language.

“You can’t preserve or protect or revitalize indigenous languages in a vacuum- they’re related to all of the other rights of indigenous peoples, principally the right to self-determination,” Keane told IPS, adding that the Permanent Forum tries to highlight all of these rights, citing several branches to assist indigenous rights.

Asked what role the Forum will play, he said: “Our role is trying to move countries forward when implementing rights and outlining declarations.” Keane said, stressing that only when indigenous peoples are able to practice self-determination, and be able to live on their ancestral territories, “can we truly protect the languages”.

The annual commemoration of World Indigenous Peoples Day took place August 9 and was organized by the Indigenous Peoples and Development Branch of the Secretariat of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. The event featured two panels, guest speakers, and performances.

Today, there are about 370 million indigenous peoples worldwide, making up about 5% of the population. However, the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has predicted that, by the end of this century, between 50-90% of indigenous languages will perish.

Credit: UN

Indigenous language is fading as a result of land seizures, forced assimilation, conflicts, climate change, development projects, and a critical gap of the language being passed on to the next generation, attributed to a sense of fear or shame.

It has been noted that at least one indigenous language has been dying every 2 weeks and will continue to do so, if action is not taken.

It is an issue so concerning that it is reaching all corners of the world.

There are between 6,000 and 7,000 world languages in the world today, half of them are expected to go extinct by 2100. As a result, more than 50% of the worlds indigenous peoples are in danger of losing their language

Brian Keane, rapporteur of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues

“We need to create reading materials, compile tales, stories and myths from the indigenous peoples.” María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés, President of the UN General Assembly declared, adding that languages are alive “as long as we speak them”.

“With every language that disappears, the world loses a wealth of traditional knowledge and cultural heritage.” UN Secretary General António Guterres declared in an official statement, adding that education has a pivotal role to play in ensuring that indigenous peoples can enjoy and preserve their culture and identity, and that intercultural and multi-lingual education will be necessary to prevent irreparable loss.

Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada concluded in his official statement: “On behalf of the Government of Canada, I encourage everyone to learn more about the cultures and languages of Indigenous peoples, here in Canada and around the world,”

However, there are several initiatives in place to help foster indigenous language, such as the use of digital technology.

“Over the last 5 or 6 years we’ve really seen a boom in seeing indigenous languages online,” Eddie Avila, Director of Rising Voices said in his keynote speech, highlighting Wikipedia, emoticons, and users tweeting on Twitter in their native tongue.

“It’s really a message of do it yourself,” he added, but pointed out that it is ultimately the young people behind the tools who are critical, as well as academic researchers and policymakers.

Avila described designated spaces for young indigenous peoples to gather and engage in discussions.

“I think the non- indigenous youth can kind of encourage their classmates and other friends who may speak an indigenous language that it is okay to be multilingual, bilingual” Avila told IPS.

He said things are slowly changing compared to the past where there was a sense of shame to speak an indigenous language. He also stressed the importance of celebrating those differences but also recognizing the value of maintaining those roots.

He went on to note that in a city like New York, it is very easy to see the diversity and celebrate that, but added it is not always that way around the world, again tracing back to the importance of using language online, such as Duolingo and social media.

“And I think Rising Voices, we’re trying to support communities of indigenous languages, and we want to leverage technology to encourage new speakers, to promote the language, and to show that it is very functional on something as modern as the Internet, Avila declared.

Scores of migrants and refugees have been desperately trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea. Credit: Ilaria Vechi / IPS

By Blerim MustafaGENEVA, Aug 1 2019 (IPS)

The migrant and refugee crisis has become a serious test for the unity of Europe as a political project. The inflow of destitute migrants and refugees has tested Europe’s political unity to an unprecedented extent. With a long-term solution to the migrant and refugee crisis nowhere in sight, the adverse impact of the current situation has the potential to unfold further and to give rise to a broader crisis with long-term implications, affecting Europe and the MENA region alike.

In his influential essay “The End of History?”, Professor Francis Fukuyama predicted that the universalization of the Western concept of liberal democracy, in the aftermath of the end of the Cold War, would prevail and erase differences between peoples, societies, civilizations and world regions. Nevertheless, the manipulation of despair and the violent destruction of lives and assets in the Middle East have taken their toll in terms of the radicalization of youth. The re-emergence of populism in advanced countries continue to divide their societies. The situation is particularly striking in countries of Central and Eastern Europe that witnessed a surge in nationalist sentiments once the communist era came to an end and that did not have a colonial past. In Western Europe, the adverse impact of globalization and the financial crisis have given rise to the notion of a lost generation in which Europe’s youth experience greater degrees of impoverishment, inequality and unemployment. A political vacuum has therefore emerged, which has given rise to movements that anchor their ideologies on anti-globalization, unilateralism, protectionism and extreme forms of nationalism. Progress is being achieved to come to terms with its deadly sting, but populism in the West and extremism in the Middle East – spilling over into Europe – cannot be set against one another. The former is still – but for how long – predominantly peaceful in nature while the latter is generating political violence.

Populist parties are emerging as credible actors in light of the recent electoral successes in local and national elections. Their recipe for success: spread of fear, anger, hatred and xenophobia towards refugees and migrants in an attempt to confer legitimacy to their political ideologies. Right wing and populist parties in the West are on the offensive and are now threatening the democratic traditions of a continent referred to as the birthplace of democracy, liberalism and Enlightenment. It challenges the legitimacy of national governments and threatens to restore extreme forms of nationalistic reactions that constitute direct threats to peace, reconciliation and international cooperation. It remains a paradox that countries in Central and Eastern Europe – often the most vocal critics of the arrival of migrants and refugees – have one of the lowest percentages of people belonging to Islam. These are the countries that have benefitted most from inter-EU migration and from an open labour market. Populism, however, does not arise out of nowhere. Establishment political parties have catered to the wealthy and failed to address burning social issues, thus creating a vacuum into which political opportunists could move.

Another feature that is ubiquitous is the tendency to externalise responses to address the plight of people on the move. In this regard, fences and walls have been erected and borders sealed off in an attempt to outsource and externalise solutions to address the rise of people on the move. In addition to the notorious wall between US and Mexico, which will be made even more repellent, and to the no less notorious one cutting off the Palestinian Occupied Territories, border fences and wires have been erected between the borders of Spanish enclaves (Melilla, Ceuta)/Morocco, Slovenia/Croatia, Hungary/Croatia, Hungary/Serbia, Macedonia/Greece, Turkey/Greece and Bulgaria/Turkey. Hungary has also considered erecting a fence along the Hungarian/Romanian border in response to the influx of people on the move.

Although it is the sovereign right of every country to implement measures deemed appropriate to protect their national borders, these physical barriers can come in conflict with the right of people to seek asylum as stipulated in article 14, paragraph 1, of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (a right, however, not included in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights), and in the 1951 Refugees Convention, which defines a refugee as a person outside his country of nationality who has a well founded fear of persecution if returned to his country of origin. Providing assistance and protection to refugees is, therefore, in line with States’ obligations under international law and not only with their moral duties to respond to the dire situation many desperate people are facing. In this connection, it is worth referring to Pope Francis’s tweet made on 18 March 2017 where he appealed to decision-makers to not “build walls but bridges, to conquer evil with good, offence with forgiveness, to live in peace with everyone.” Pope Francis has likewise urged societies “to welcome, to protect, to promote, and to integrate migrants and refugees”.

The origin of attempts in Europe to “externalize” solutions to the refugee and migrant crisis can be traced back to the 1990 Dublin Convention. The latter stipulates the right to deport migrants and refugees to the first country of arrival, primarily to Greece, Spain and Italy, which are the first European entry points for people on the move owing to their geographical location. Countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea therefore are faced with the burden of absorbing the migrant and refugee inflows from the MENA region. This approach has contributed to an unfair distribution and relocation system of migrants and refugees where countries neighbouring bordering Syria and Iraq and then European countries situated on the Mediterranean Sea coast are the most affected. In the report of the United Nations Secretary-General addressing large movements of migrants and refugees – submitted in April 2016 to the United Nations General Assembly – he regretted that “too often, responsibility for new arrivals lies with the authorities and host communities in the first country of arrival.”

The European Union (EU) has also attempted to work with neighbouring states to defuse the crisis and to externalise solutions to control the flow of people on the move. It appears that the EU has drawn inspiration from the Australian government that have established refugee camps in neighbouring countries such as the island state of Nauru to address the inflow of refugees. In this connection, an agreement was reached between EU and Turkey, in March 2016, which stipulates, inter alia, that Ankara accepts the return of illegal migrants entering Europe. In counterpart, the EU would commit to investing EUR 3 billion to support livelihood projects for returning migrants. A similar position has also been taken vis-à-vis another migratory transit country Libya, in which the EU is committed to supporting the endeavours of the Libyan government to detain migrants and refugees in confinement camps. In response to this practice, the former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad al Hussein referred to the detention of migrants and refugees in Libya as “an outrage to humanity”.

Despite these attempts to outsource solutions to the migrant and refugee crisis, inflows of people on the move have not ceased as the main destination regions of migrants and refugees remain the advanced and developed countries in Northern Europe. In this connection, the migrant and refugee crisis is not sustainable in the long run either for Europe or for the Arab region. The rise of populism in Europe – which so far remains political in nature – and the rise of violent extremism in the Middle East – which is an immediate threat – endanger the long-term stability of both regions and has the potential to stir an even bigger migrant and refugee crisis in the future. The root-causes of the unprecedented flow of people on the move have multiple causes, which require a multilevel response. It is imperative that decision-makers recognise the multitude of factors that contribute to the forced displacement of people. Most importantly, peace and stability and a climate conducive to the development of and the respect for human rights must be restored. It is hard to imagine why refugees and migrants would return to their home societies if sustainable and alternative livelihood options are not in place to meet the individual and collective needs of peoples and societies, and if wars and armed conflicts continue unabated.

Blerim Mustafa, Project and communications officer, the Geneva Centre for Human Rights Advancement and Global Dialogue. Postgraduate researcher (Ph.D. candidate) at the Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Leicester (UK).

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/08/migration-human-solidarity/feed/2Tackling Inequality: A Focus on Cities can Improve Upward Economic Mobilityhttp://www.ipsnews.net/2019/07/tackling-inequality-focus-cities-can-improve-upward-economic-mobility/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=tackling-inequality-focus-cities-can-improve-upward-economic-mobility
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/07/tackling-inequality-focus-cities-can-improve-upward-economic-mobility/#respondWed, 31 Jul 2019 13:50:47 +0000Tarik Gooptuhttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=162663Tarik Gooptu is in his second and final year of the master’s of philosophy in economics at the University of Oxford. Originally from Washington, DC, he received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan in economics and political science*.

Tackling inequality in the 21st century requires us to understand and address barriers to upward mobility that segments of people face within countries. In a world with high and increasing levels of urbanization, the conversation on challenges to mobility must start with cities.

By addressing the drivers of inequality in cities, policymakers can alleviate conditions that perpetuate within-country inequality. Efficiently planning public transportation investments to target metropolitan communities with low connectivity is a crucial step to reducing disparities in upward mobility.

Doing this provides low-income residents with improved access to jobs, schools, hospitals, and other benefits of living in an urban area. A smart urban planning framework, enabled by effective partnership between the public and private sector, would enable citizens to enjoy a more level playing field.

As a result, cities can transform into drivers of global economic convergence in living standards.

In the past three decades, the world has experienced a global convergence between countries, mainly due to increased international trade, advancements in technology, and economic integration.

However, these same factors have led to a relatively new phase of inequality seen in the 21st century. Works by Atkinson, Piketty, and Saez (2011) and Lakner and Milanovic (2016) have depicted a world suffering from inequality within countries, characterized by disparities between “gainers” and “losers” in the globalized economy.

People have proposed multiple explanations for this, including skill-biased technological change, increased automation, and outsourcing of jobs to regions with cheaper labor—to name a few. Perhaps somewhat overlooked are the large disparities between people living within the cities themselves.

Why cities? Rapid urbanization and severe intracity inequality are the two primary reasons policymakers should focus on cities when thinking about how to tackle the broader issue of inequality.

According to the World Urbanization Report, 55 percent of the global population resides in urban areas—an increase from 30 percent in 1950. The global urbanized population is projected to increase even further, to 68 percent, by 2050 (UN 2018).

In addition, the UN Population Division reports that “urbanization has been faster in some less developed regions compared to historical trends in the more developed regions” (UN DESA 2018. The convergence in the growth of urbanization, between developing and advanced economies, also suggests that the problems of cities increasingly affect countries at all income levels.

In addition to rapid urbanization, cities have become a locus of the most severe inequality we see today. A 2014 article by Kristian Behrens summarizes the issue of inequality within cities.

Behrens shows that within-country Gini indexes are highest as population densities increase and that under current conditions, cities tend to disproportionately reward people in the top income percentiles (Behrens 2014). In addition, cities draw people primarily from the top and bottom of the income distribution.

The global economic restructuring, outlined above, is expected to create more polarized income distribution within countries. This, combined with Behrens’s evidence, suggests that inequality within cities is expected to worsen, under current conditions.

The countries of the world are simultaneously experiencing unprecedented urbanization and severe inequality. While cities are currently the nexus of the worst inequality, there are opportunities to convert them into means for economic convergence.

The concept of “agglomeration economies” is summarized well by Edward Glaeser as the benefits realized from people and firms locating close to one another, in cities and industrial clusters, which are primarily gained through reduced transportation costs (Glaeser 2010).

But some areas in cities are not as well connected as others. This drives disparities between people in metropolitan localities. In order to address this, policymakers must address inequality of access to jobs and services between communities of different income status.

Underinvestment in roads, buses, train lines, and subways can cut off districts within large cities from jobs, education, and services. Higher mobility costs, in the form of longer commute times and lack of affordable transportation, are barriers to the upward mobility of lower-income people in cities.

Local governments and the private sector can work together to improve access to jobs and services by building a better public transportation infrastructure within cities. However, misallocation of both land and public resources worsens conditions for marginalized communities, contributing to intracity inequality.

The 2016 Rio Olympics, which have been heavily criticized for putting the city in an adverse fiscal situation, is as an example of how misallocation of public resources can actually perpetuate inequality in a city. Rio de Janeiro’s bus rapid transit (BRT) system is a designated-lane integrated bus system planned and funded via a public-private partnership.

City officials said that Rio’s BRT was needed to help transport Olympic spectators and will provide long-term rapid and affordable travel for city residents. While Rio’s BRT successfully reduced average transportation costs, its routes served to aggravate inequality between high- and low-income citizens.

An urban planning study conducted by the Fluminese Federal University shows how Rio’s major daily traffic flows run from lower-income neighborhoods (in the north and west) to downtown Rio (South Zone and part of the North Zone), where 60 percent of Rio’s formal employment is concentrated (Johnson 2014).

But, instead of providing lower-income residents access to the city center, the BRT allocates routes to an upper-income residential area. Jobs here are predominantly in the informal sector: not registered with the government, with lower salaries, and without health or other benefits.

Furthermore, the city government cut spending on health and police as a result of going over budget on Olympics expenditures, which worsened the health and safety of the poor.

Rio’s BRT system exemplifies how public infrastructure can be misallocated, without proper planning and an understanding of citizens’ demand for jobs and services. However, when policymakers implement well-planned public infrastructure, it can combat inequality within cities.

Curitiba’s BRT is a well-known example of effective urban planning yielding positive outcomes for city expansion. Planning of the bus line construction was orchestrated by the Institute for Research and Urban Planning of Curitiba in the 1970s.

Funding and implementation were conducted via a public-private-partnership between the Urban Development Agency of Curitiba, and private bus companies that operate the routes. The partnership model allows policymakers to develop creative ways to ease the cost burden of providing public infrastructure.

The result of Curitiba’s plan was a low-cost, fast, and efficient means of transportation, running on green energy, that has operated successfully for 35 years. A diagram from a 2010 World Resources Institute report shows that the integrated transit system provides a means for citizens in all areas of the expanding city to access all parts of it.

However, despite its initial success, even Curitiba’s sustainable transit system faces difficulties. A 2012 CityLab article says that in recent years, the city has failed to integrate its growing suburbs into its BRT system (Halais 2012).

As a result, low-income residents are cut off while upper-income residents switch to cars—an inconvenience for everyone that harms the poor more severely. Curitiba’s example shows that policymakers require a constant and proactive awareness of cities’ changing needs.

With available economic data and the implementation of origin-destination surveys, we can better understand where populations need to be connected and their demands for particular services.

An efficient way to tackle inequality is to address lack of mobility in cities, which drives unequal access to jobs, education, and services. Improving access to public infrastructure allows people of all income levels to benefit from the agglomeration effects of living in an urban area.

Well-planned public transportation systems bring cities closer to this goal through better access for low-income populations to jobs, schools, and hospitals in the city center. Thus, growing cities can serve as sources of economic convergence rather than divergence.

Public transportation not only helps lower inequality, it also helps reduce cities’ carbon footprint. As many megacities begin to suffer the ill effects of heavy pollution, policy that addresses both inequality and sustainability would be welcome.

*Following a global essay competition for graduate students on how best to tackle inequality, Tarik Gooptu’s submission was selected as the runner-up. To learn of future Finance & Development ( F&D) essay competitions, sign up for the newsletter here. F&D is a publication of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Tarik Gooptu is in his second and final year of the master’s of philosophy in economics at the University of Oxford. Originally from Washington, DC, he received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan in economics and political science*.

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/07/tackling-inequality-focus-cities-can-improve-upward-economic-mobility/feed/0Tanzania Detains Freelancer Kabendera over ‘Citizenship’http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/07/tanzania-detains-freelancer-kabendera-citizenship/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=tanzania-detains-freelancer-kabendera-citizenship
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/07/tanzania-detains-freelancer-kabendera-citizenship/#respondWed, 31 Jul 2019 09:00:53 +0000Committee to Protect Journalistshttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=162657The Committee to Protect Journalists today called on Tanzanian authorities to immediately release freelance journalist Erick Kabendera, whom police said is being investigated over his citizenship status. Dar es Salaam police chief Lazaro Mambosasa said at a press conference today that Kabendera was in custody and that police arrested him after the journalist failed to […]

Tanzania police say that investigative journalist Erick Kabendera is being investigated over his citizenship status. Courtesy: Amnesty International

By Committee to Protect JournalistsNAIROBI, Jul 31 2019 (IPS)

The Committee to Protect Journalists today called on Tanzanian authorities to immediately release freelance journalist Erick Kabendera, whom police said is being investigated over his citizenship status.

Dar es Salaam police chief Lazaro Mambosasa said at a press conference today that Kabendera was in custody and that police arrested him after the journalist failed to obey a summons. Mambosasa said that Kabendera was being questioned about his citizenship and that police were working with immigration officials. Police yesterday denied knowledge of Kabendera’s case after the journalist was taken from his home by a group of men who refused to identify themselves, according to reports and CPJ research.

One of the journalist’s relatives, who spoke with CPJ on condition of anonymity because of safety concerns, said that the citizenship investigation was surprising because authorities had investigated his status before and “cleared him.” In 2013 authorities terminated a similar investigation into the journalist and his parents, calling it “ill-advised” and stating that the family’s citizenship was not questionable, according to a report by the privately-owned publication, The Citizen. In a blog post, Kabendera linked the 2013 investigation to attempts to muzzle him. The Citizen reported last year on several cases of authorities investigating the citizenship of government critics.

The relative said that no summons was issued and told CPJ they believe the arrest is in retaliation for Kabendera’s journalism, which has been unflinching in its assessment of President John Magufuli’s government.

“This rehashing of discredited claims about Erick Kabendera’s citizenship appear to be nothing more than a ploy by the Tanzanian authorities to justify their actions after public outcry over the manner in which the journalist was detained,” said CPJ Sub-Saharan Africa Representative Muthoki Mumo. “Kabendera should be released immediately and this sham of an investigation terminated. Tanzanian authorities must stop harassing their critics.”

At the press conference this afternoon, Mambosasa said that Kabendera was being held at Central police station in Dar es Salaam. When family, colleagues, and lawyers tried to visit the journalist this evening, they were told he was not at the station and that they could not see him until tomorrow, Jones Sendodo, a lawyer affiliated with the Tanzania Human Rights Defenders Coalition and who went to the station, told CPJ. The coalition today filed a bail application that will be heard on August 1, according to Watetezi TV, which is associated with the coalition.

Tanzanian Inspector General of Police Simon Sirro and Mambosasa were unreachable on their phones today. CPJ’s messages asking for comment, sent this evening, went unanswered.

Kabendera has reported for several regional and international publications, including the British newspaperThe Guardian and the websiteAfrican Arguments. His most recent reporting in the regional weekly The East African covered alleged divisions in Tanzania’s ruling party, Chama Cha Mapinduzi, amid alleged plots within the party to block Magufuli from running for a second term.

Press freedom has drastically deteriorated in Magufuli’s Tanzania. CPJ has documented the use of suspensions, restrictive legislation, and intimidation to muzzle journalists. The freelance journalist Azory Gwanda went missing in 2017 and the government has yet to provide a credible accounting of his whereabouts. When asked about Gwanda today, Mambosasa told journalists that he could not provide details because it was necessary to keep investigations “secret” to protect evidence before it was brought to a court.

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/07/tanzania-detains-freelancer-kabendera-citizenship/feed/0**UPDATE**Investigative Journalist Erick Kabendera Arrestedhttp://www.ipsnews.net/2019/07/updateinvestigative-journalist-erick-kabendera-arrested/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=updateinvestigative-journalist-erick-kabendera-arrested
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/07/updateinvestigative-journalist-erick-kabendera-arrested/#respondTue, 30 Jul 2019 08:17:14 +0000IPS Correspondentshttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=162635Freelancer Erick Kabendera was reportedly arrested from his home in Mbweni, Dar es Salaam, Tanziana yesterday afternoon by unknown men. Kabendera who has been a correspondent reporting mostly on development issues for IPS since 2012, freelances as a journalist for local and international media, including The Guardian. This morning, another colleague, who spoke to IPS on […]

The enforcement of the online content regulations has scared people from stating their opinions online in Tanzania. Credit: Erick Kabendera/IPS

By IPS CorrespondentsJOHANNESBURG, South Africa, Jul 30 2019 (IPS)

Freelancer Erick Kabendera was reportedly arrested from his home in Mbweni, Dar es Salaam, Tanziana yesterday afternoon by unknown men.

Kabendera who has been a correspondent reporting mostly on development issues for IPS since 2012, freelances as a journalist for local and international media, including The Guardian.

This morning, another colleague, who spoke to IPS on the condition of anonymity stated that while rumours had circulated yesterday that Kabendera had been abducted, this was not the case.

“He is being held by the police for interrogation. It was rumoured on Monday that he had been abducted by unknown people. Police in Dar es Salaam have confirmed that he is being held at the Central Police station. No details so far. Updates will follow.”

A call to Dar es Salaam police chief Lazaro Mambosasa by IPS was cut off this morning and subsequent calls did not connect.

Originally news of his arrest was unclear, with The Citizen newspaper reporting that 6 men claiming to be police officers who the paper reported refused to identify themselves, entered his home wanting to search it.

Another colleague of Kabendera confirmed to IPS last night that the investigative journalist had been arrested.

“Police confirmed that he is in police custody for interrogation,” the source who did not want to be named stated.

However, the Committee to Protect Journalists reported that, “CPJ could not confirm that the journalist was detained by police. A call late today to the police inspector general Simon Sirro went unanswered.”

Meanwhile Kabendera’s colleague stated he had no knowledge of the charges against Kabendera but said that police have said they would release him after the interrogation and after Kabendera’s residence was searched.

The source said that he was unable to reach Kabendera’s family by phone but had been told by others who had gone to the family home after hearing the news that his family was safe. It was reported by The Citizen that Kabendera’s and his wife’s cell phones were confiscated by the men and that the house line had reportedly been severed.

When asked what he thought the charges against Kabendera are, the source stated, “No one knows. Though it is well known that he is an investigative journalist working as a freelancer both locally and internationally.”

CPJ Sub-Saharan Africa Representative Muthoki Mumo said: “Authorities must immediately disclose if they are holding Erick Kabendera, and for what reason, and ensure the journalist is returned safely to his family.”

On Kabendera’s Twitter feed he reposted a tweet where the BBC’s chief international correspondent Lyse Doucet explained that “journalism is a profession which depends on kindness. The kindness of strangers who open their hearts and their homes to us.”

The BBC’s chief international correspondent @bbclysedoucet explains why kindness is so important to journalism.

In May, he told IPS editor Nalisha Adams that he had returned to school and was completing his MA in International Political Economy at the London School of Economics.

IPS has registered a strong protest against the abduction of one of its journalists. We are expecting the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and human rights organisations worldwide to join us in a joint appeal for Kabendera’s safe return. Meanwhile, the IPS family extends its support for his family in this hour of need.

In solidarity Kabendera’s colleagues at IPS from across Africa and the globe have called for his release and transparency in the process.

** This story has been updated to include information that Kabendera was arrested by police and not abducted.

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/07/updateinvestigative-journalist-erick-kabendera-arrested/feed/0The Precipitous Barbarisation of Our Timeshttp://www.ipsnews.net/2019/07/precipitous-barbarisation-times/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=precipitous-barbarisation-times
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/07/precipitous-barbarisation-times/#commentsTue, 23 Jul 2019 10:51:51 +0000Roberto Saviohttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=162526When all is said and done, it appears that Thomas Hobbes, the 17th century English philosopher who had a dire vision of man, was not totally wrong. From the frivolous to the serious, in just a week we have had four items of news which would not happen in a normal world. An English porn […]

When all is said and done, it appears that Thomas Hobbes, the 17th century English philosopher who had a dire vision of man, was not totally wrong.

From the frivolous to the serious, in just a week we have had four items of news which would not happen in a normal world. An English porn beauty with 86,000 followers on social media has put bottles of the water she bathes in on sale at 30 pounds a bottle and has sold several thousand bottles.

Roberto Savio

A survey in Brazil found out that 7% of citizens believe that the earth is flat (40 percent of American schools teach that the world was created in a week, according to the Bible, so there cannot be ancient civilisations) Another survey, this time of members of the British Tory party, who seem likely to elect Boris Johnson as prime minister (not exactly a triumph of reason) are so in favour of a “hard” Brexit that they do not care if this means the exit of Scotland and the end of the United Kingdom. Finally, in order to win election, US president Donald Trump has made racism one of his banners and, in a country of immigrants, this has given him an increase of 5 points in opinion polls.

There are so many signs of barbarisation that they would fill a book… and, as Euripides famously wrote: Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.

It is not a popular task, but we have to look at the reality and observe that, in the most scientifically and technologically developed period of history, we are living in times of precipitous barbarisation.

Social inequality has become the basis for the new economy. People have now lowered their expectations and are prepared to work part-time in a precarious job, where young people (according to the International Labour Organisation) can hope for a retirement pension of 600 euro a month. This has been accepted by the political system. We even have a study from Spain according to which, in the present housing market, nearly 87% of people need 90% of their salary just to rent a house.

Today, for many, a salary means survival, not a dignified life. The new economy has developed the so-called gig economy: you work to distribute food, but you are a co-entrepreneur without any of the rights of an employee, for an amount that will never allow you to marry. Children have grown accustomed to look at phenomena such as poverty or war as natural. And now politics are not based on ideas but on how you can successfully exploit the guts of the people, waving banners against immigrants (when we are witnessing a rapid fall in the birth rate) and splintering countries between ”We” who represent the people and “You” enemy of the country. The United States is the best example, where Republicans consider Democrats enemies of the United States. And this brings us to a central question: have Trump, Italy’s Matteo Salvini, Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro and company not been elected democratically? And they are the symptom or the cause of the “populocracy” which is replacing democracy?

It is not possible to offer a sociological or historical study here. Let us just use a bite: we have gone from the Gutenberg era into a new era – the Zuckerberg era.

Those who greeted the arrival of the Internet with enthusiasm also did so because it would democratise communication and therefore bring about greater participation. The hope was to see a world where horizontal communication would replace the vertical system of information which Gutenberg made possible. Information was, in fact, a support for states and business that used it to reach citizens, who had no recourse to feedback. With Internet, people could now speak directly throughout the world and the propaganda which accompanied its arrival was not considered relevant: it is not important to know, it is important to know where to find It. Well, we have all the statistics on how Internet has affected the general level of culture and dialogue.

The attention span of people has declined dramatically. The majority of Internet users do not stay on an item more than 15 seconds. In the last five years, book volumes have been shortened by 29 pages. Today, articles longer than 650 words are not accepted by columnists’ services. The last meeting of editors of international news agencies decided to lower the level of news from the level of 22 years to that of 17 years. In Europe, the percentage of people who buy at least one book a year now stands at 22% (in the United States it is now 10.5%). According to a recent study in Italy, only 40% of the population is able to read and understand a book. In the same country, 13% of libraries have closed in the last ten years. A very popular transmission in Spain was ”59 seconds” which saw a number of people debate round a table; at the 59th seconds their microphones would disappear. Today, the dream of a TV interviewer is that the person interviewed will give a shorter answer than the question. Newspapers are for people over forty. And there is a unanimous complaint about the level of students entering the university: not all are free from mistakes of orthography and syntax. And the list could continue practically ad infinitum.

The problem of barbarisation has major relevance for political participation. The Gutenberg generations were accustomed to dialogue and discussion. Today, 83% of Internet users (80% under the age of 21), do so only in the virtual world they carved out for themselves. People of Group A gather only with people of Group A. If they come across somebody from Group B, they insult each other. Politicians have been able to adjust rapidly to the system. The best example is Trump. All US newspapers together have a circulation of 60 million copies (ten million those of quality, both conservative and progressive). Trump has 60 million followers who take Trump’s tweets as information. The do not buy newspapers, and if they watch TV it is Fox, which is Trump’s amplifier. No wonder that over 80% of Trump’s voters would vote for him again. And the media, which have lost the ability to offer analysis and cover processes, not just events, take the easy path. Let us follow famous people and make the famous more famous. Analytical journalism is disappearing. In the United States it exists thanks to grants … in every European country, there are few quality papers left, and the largest circulation goes to tabloids which spare their readers the effort of thinking. The Daily Mirror in Britain and Bild in Germany are the best examples.

Internet has made everybody a communicator. This is a fantastic achievement. But in this increasing barbarisation, people also use the Internet for transmitting false information, stories based on fantasy, without any of the quality controls that the media world used to have. And artificial intelligence has been taking over, creating many false accounts, which now interfere in the electoral process, as was proven in the last US elections. We have to add to this that the algorithms used by the owners of the Internet aim to trap the attention of users in order to keep them as much as possible. This month, El Pais published a long study entitled “The toxic effects of YouTube”, where it shows how its algorithms push the viewer to items that are of fantasy, pseudoscientific and of great attraction.

This is due to the fact that the owners have become fabulously rich by transforming citizens into consumers. They find out our identity, and they sell it to companies for their marketing, and also for elections. Those owners have unprecedented wealth, never achieved in the real world: not only in that of production, but even in the world of finance, which has become a casino with no control. The entire world of production of services and goods, man-made, is now close to a trillion dollars a day; that same day, financial flows reach 40 trillion dollars. Jeff Bezos ‘s divorce gave his wife 38 billion dollars. That is equal to the annual average income of 20,000 dollars of 19 million people. No wonder that 80 individuals now possess the same wealth as 2.3 billion people (in 2008, they were 1,200 individuals).

According to historians, greed and fear are great engines of change in history. That was also true in the Gutenberg era. But now, they have triggered a combination of both in a short period of time. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the doctrine of liberal globalisation arrived with such strength that Margaret Thatcher (who with Ronald Reagan ushered in the new vision of individual profits and elimination of social goods) famously talked of TINA: There Is No Alternative.

The entire political system, including Social Democrats, accepted riding a system of values based on greed and unfettered competition at individual level, at state level and at international level. It took twenty years to understand that the poor have become poorer, and the rich richer, and that states have lost much of their sovereignty to multinational corporations and the world of finance. It is worth noting that, in 2009, in order to save a corrupt and inefficient financial system, the world spent 12 trillion dollars (the United States alone, 4 trillion). Since that rescue, banks have paid the impressive amount of 800 billion dollars in penalties for illicit activities.

The financial crisis of 2009 has triggered a wave of fear. Let us not forget that until 2009, there were no sovereignist, populist, xenophobic parties anywhere, except for Le Pen in France. Soon old traps such as “in name of the nation” and “the defence of religion” were resurrected by politicians able to ride fear. A new scapegoat – immigrants – was found and populocrats are now undermining democracy everywhere.

Populocracy is the new wave. Former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi ushered in a new language, and that language has now been updated by Salvini, Trump and so on. Twitter, Facebook and Instagram are the new medium and now the medium is the message. The old elite had not found a new language.

The Zuckerberg era is an era of greed and fear. Zuckerberg is now attempting to create a global currency, the Libra, to be used by his 2.3 billion users. Until now, states were the only entities able to emit money, a symbol of the nation. Zuckerberg’s currency is based entirely on the Internet and will have no control or regulations. In case of a default, we will have a world crisis without precedent. In the Gutenberg era, this was not possible.

But who has made able Jeff Bezos to give 38 billion dollars to a former wife? Who has elected Trump and Salvini and company, who speak on behalf of the nation and the people, and turn those who do not agree into enemies of the nation and the people, creating an unprecedented polarisation, accompanied by an orgy of revolt against science and knowledge, which have supported the elite, and must now be put aside for the good of people.

This process of barbarisation should not obscure an old proverb: every country has the government it deserves. It is called democracy. However, the traditional elite has no code of communication with the new era. The answer will come from citizen mobilization.

A young Swedish girl, Greta Thunberg, has done more with her stubbornness to raise awareness about impending climate change than the entire political system. Even Trump (albeit for electoral reasons) has now declared that climate change is important.

Today, there many “points of light“ appearing in the world. The elections in Istanbul are a good example, as are the mobilisation in Hong Kong, Sudan and Nicaragua, among many others. Let us hope we will reach a point where people will take the reins of the process and awake the world from the precipitous course of barbarisation. Even Thomas Hobbes concluded that humankind will always, soon or later, find the right path, and give itself good governance. He thought that an elite would always be able to lead the masses.

Well, elites are now the Greta Thunbergs of the world.

Publisher of OtherNews, Italian-Argentine Roberto Savio is an economist, journalist, communication expert, political commentator, activist for social and climate justice and advocate of an anti neoliberal global governance. Director for international relations of the European Center for Peace and Development.. He is co-founder of Inter Press Service (IPS) news agency and its President Emeritus.

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/07/precipitous-barbarisation-times/feed/1Pompeo’s New “Human Rights” Commission Is Up To No Goodhttp://www.ipsnews.net/2019/07/pompeos-new-human-rights-commission-no-good/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=pompeos-new-human-rights-commission-no-good
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/07/pompeos-new-human-rights-commission-no-good/#respondMon, 15 Jul 2019 16:51:29 +0000Jamil Dakwar and Sonia Gillhttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=162430Jamil Dakwar is director of the American Civil Liberties Union's (ACLU) Human Rights Program and adjunct lecturer at John Jay College at the City University of New York (CUNY). Sonia Gill is senior legislative counsel with the ACLU.

The Trump administration appears to be trying to find moral footing for the president’s discriminatory policies. Last week, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo formally announced the creation of a “Commission on Unalienable Rights.”

Its stated purpose, according to a notice published in the Federal Register in May, is to provide “fresh thinking about human rights discourse where such discourse has departed from our nation’s founding principles of natural law and natural rights.”

The Trump administration’s actions and words — from threatening International Criminal Court judges and prosecutors, pulling out of the U.N. Human Rights Council and severing relations with its independent experts, to cozying up with authoritarian leaders and advancing xenophobic policies that defy international law — have made it abundantly clear that the administration has zero interest in being a global champion of human rights. This commission isn’t fooling anyone.

We know that references to “natural law and natural rights” are code words used by the religious right and social conservatives to advance anti-LGBTQ and anti-women’s rights agendas. We also know that members of the new commission have troubling anti-LGBTQ and abortion rights records.

And based on the Trump administration’s record, there is good reason to believe the commission is intended to redefine universal human rights to fit the administration’s twisted and troubling worldview, with the clear and first target being the State Department’s long-standing work to advance the rights of LGBTQ people, women, and other vulnerable populations across the world.

In defending the commission in a recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, Secretary Pompeo charged that human rights advocates have created “new categories of rights” that “blur the distinction between unalienable rights and ad hoc rights granted by governments.” And that the commission will “ground our discussion of human rights in America’s founding principles.”

That’s a load of nonsense. Secretary Pompeo speaks of longstanding international human rights norms as if he’s demonstrated a single iota of respect for them, and as if those norms are incongruent with defending human dignity and democratic values.

The Universal Declaration on Human Rights (UDHR) — which Secretary Pompeo names as a foundational document that will be examined by the commission — is grounded in democratic values of equal rights, justice, and the right to self-determination.

It establishes the modern international human rights framework that provides the legal and moral authority to hold governments and other perpetrators accountable for human rights violations — a framework that the Trump administration seems bent on dismantling.

What Secretary Pompeo fails to understand, or perhaps acknowledge, is that this modern international human rights framework is made up of the very same traditions and values that also guided America’s democratic origins.

In fact, all too often in our modern history, it is the U.S. — irrespective of the political party in power — that has failed to live up to the UDHR, including the UDHR’s promise of economic justice.

Different groups throughout American history, including indigenous peoples, enslaved African people, and women, among others, have all been the victims of America’s double-standard.

When the United States has wavered on its commitment at home and abroad, it is the UDHR in many cases that has provided the framework to hold our country’s leaders accountable.

That’s because the full spectrum of rights enshrined in the UDHR are preordained by well-recognized democratic values, traditions, and principles, including the founding principles of our democracy.

The world has now witnessed the human costs of the Trump administration’s atrocious disregard for these basic human rights and democratic values: the inhumanity of family separation and detention, the discriminatory Muslim ban, the upended lives from the repeal of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, the revival of the racist ‘War on Drugs,’ numerous attempts to roll back advances in LGBTQ equality, trampling on the rights of women, and illegal restrictions on the rights of asylum seekers.

Having had it with the world naming and shaming under the international human rights framework, the administration appears to be trying to find moral footing for President Trump’s discriminatory policies with the announcement of this commission.

Make no mistake: Pompeo’s commission is a dangerous initiative intended to redefine universal human rights and roll back decades of progress in achieving full rights for marginalized and historically oppressed communities.

And it will be a waste of taxpayer dollars, which would be better spent on implementing U.S. human rights treaty obligations and putting an end to Trump’s era of human misery and assault on our humanity.

Jamil Dakwar is director of the American Civil Liberties Union's (ACLU) Human Rights Program and adjunct lecturer at John Jay College at the City University of New York (CUNY). Sonia Gill is senior legislative counsel with the ACLU.

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/07/pompeos-new-human-rights-commission-no-good/feed/0Prejudice and Discrimination, the Uncured Ills of Leprosyhttp://www.ipsnews.net/2019/07/prejudice-discrimination-uncured-ills-leprosy/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=prejudice-discrimination-uncured-ills-leprosy
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/07/prejudice-discrimination-uncured-ills-leprosy/#respondThu, 11 Jul 2019 22:48:03 +0000Mario Osavahttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=162394“The ambulance team refused to take my sick friend to the hospital because he had had Hanseniasis years before,” said Yohei Sasakawa, president of the Nippon Foundation, at one of the meetings held during his Jul. 1-10 visit to Brazil. His friend was completely cured and had no visible effects of the disease, but in […]

Nippon Foundation President Yohei Sasakawa and Socorro Gross, Pan American Health Organisation representative in Brazil, hold a press conference in Brasilia at the end of a 10-day visit to this country by the Japanese activist who is also World Health Organisation Goodwill Ambassador for Leprosy Elimination. Credit: Mario Osava/IPS

By Mario OsavaBRASILIA, Jul 11 2019 (IPS)

“The ambulance team refused to take my sick friend to the hospital because he had had Hanseniasis years before,” said Yohei Sasakawa, president of the Nippon Foundation, at one of the meetings held during his Jul. 1-10 visit to Brazil.

His friend was completely cured and had no visible effects of the disease, but in a small town everyone knows everything about their neighbours, he said.

This didn’t happen in a poor country, but in the U.S. state of Texas, only about 50 years ago, Sasakawa pointed out to underline the damage caused by the discrimination suffered by people affected by Hansen’s Disease, better known as leprosy, as well as those who have already been cured, and their families.

“The disease is curable, its social damage is not,” he said during a meeting with lawmaker Helder Salomão, chair of the Human Rights Commission in Brazil’s lower house of Congress, to ask for support in the fight against Hanseniasis, the official medical name for the disease in Brazil, where the use of the term leprosy has been banned because of the stereotypes and stigma surrounding it.

The highlight of the mission of Sasakawa, who is also a World Health Organisation (WHO) Goodwill Ambassador for Leprosy Elimination, was a meeting on Monday Jul. 8 with President Jair Bolsonaro, who posted a message on Facebook during the meeting, which had nearly 700,000 hits as of Thursday Jul. 11.

In the 13-and-a-half minute video, Bolsonaro, Sasakawa, Health Minister Luiz Mandetta and Women, Family and Human Rights Minister Damares Alves issued a call to the authorities, organisations and society as a whole to work together to eradicate the disease caused by the Mycobacterium Leprae bacillus.

A preliminary agreement emerged from the dialogues held by the Japanese activist with members of the different branches of power in Brasilia, to hold a national meeting in 2020 to step up the fight against Hanseniasis and the discrimination and stigma faced by those affected by it and their families.

The idea is a conference with a political dimension, with the participation of national authorities, state governors and mayors, as well as a technical dimension, said Carmelita Ribeiro Coriolano, coordinator of the Health Ministry’s Hanseniasis Programme. The Tokyo-based Nippon Foundation will sponsor the event.

Brazil has the second highest incidence of Hansen’s Disease in the world, with 26.875 new cases in 2017, accounting for 12.75 percent of the world total, according to WHO. Only India has more new cases.

The government established a National Strategy to Combat Hanseniasis, for the period 2019-2022, in line with the global strategy outlined by the WHO in 2016.

Brazilian Minister of Women, Family and Human Rights Damares Alves (L) receives a gift from Yohei Sasakawa, president of the Nippon Foundation, at the beginning of a meeting in Brasilia, in which the minister promised to strengthen assistance to those affected by Hansen’s Disease, including the payment of compensation to patients who were isolated in leprosariums or leper colonies in the past. Credit: Mario Osava/IPS

Extensive training of the different actors involved in the treatment of the disease and plans at the state and municipal levels, tailored to local conditions, guide the efforts against Hansen’s Disease, focusing particularly on reducing cases that cause serious physical damage to children and on eliminating stigma and discrimination.

Before his visit to Brasilia, Sasakawa, who has already come to Brazil more than 10 times as part of his mission against Hansen’s Disease, toured the states of Pará and Maranhão to discuss with regional and municipal authorities the obstacles and the advances made, in two of the regions with the highest prevalence rate.

“In Brazil there is no lack of courses and training; the health professionals are sensitive and give special attention to Hanseniasis,” said Faustino Pinto, national coordinator of the Movement for the Reintegration of People Affected by Hanseniasis (MORHAN), who accompanied the Nippon Foundation delegation in Brasilia.

“Promoting early diagnosis, to avoid serious physical damage, and providing better information to the public and physical rehabilitation to ensure a better working life for patients” are the most necessary measures, he told IPS.

Pinto’s case illustrates the shortcomings in the health services. He was not diagnosed as being affected with Hansen’s Disease until the age of 18, nine years after he felt the first symptoms. It took five years of treatment to cure him, and he has serious damage to his hands and joints.

His personal plight and the defence of the rights of the ill, former patients and their families were outlined in his Jun. 27 presentation in Geneva, during a special meeting on the disease, parallel to the 41st session of the Human Rights Council, the highest organ of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Pinto is an eloquent advocate of the use of Hanseniasis or Hansen’s Disease, rather than leprosy, a term historically burdened with religious prejudice and stigma, which aggravates the suffering of patients and their families, but continues to be used by WHO, for example.

Yohei Sasakawa (2nd-L), president of the Nippon Foundation, accompanied by two members of his delegation, took part in a meeting with Congressman Helder Salomão (C), chair of the Human Rights Commission of the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies, who pledged to support initiatives to eliminate leprosy in his country. Faustino Pinto (2nd-R), national coordinator of the Movement for the Reintegration of Persons Affected by Hanseniasis (MORHAN), also participated. Credit: Mario Osava/IPS

Discrimination against people with the disease dates back to biblical times, when it was seen as a punishment from God, said Sasakawa during his meeting with Minister Damares Alves, a Baptist preacher who describes herself as “extremely Christian”.

In India there are 114 laws that discriminate against current or former Hansen’s Disease patients, banning them from public transport or public places, among other “absurdities”, he said.

In India, they argue that these are laws that are no longer applied, which justifies even less that they remain formally in force, he maintained during his meetings in Brasilia to which IPS had access.

Prejudice and misinformation not only subject those affected by the disease to exclusion and unnecessary suffering, but also make it difficult to eradicate the disease by keeping patients from seeking medical care, activists warn.

His over 40-year battle against Hansen’s Disease has led Sasakawa to the conclusion that it is crucial to fight against the stigma which is still rife in society.

He pressed the United Nations General Assembly to adopt in 2010 the Resolution for the Elimination of Discrimination against Persons Affected by Leprosy and their Families.

He said these attitudes and beliefs no longer make sense in the light of science, but persist nonetheless.

Treatment making isolation for patients unnecessary in order to avoid contagion has been available since the 1940s, but forced isolation in leprosariums and leper colonies officially continued in a number of countries for decades.

In Brazil, forced segregation officially lasted until 1976 and in practice until the following decade.

With multi-drug treatment or polychemotherapy, introduced in Brazil in 1982, the cure became faster and more effective.

Information is key to overcoming the problems surrounding this disease, according to Socorro Gross, the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) representative in Brazil who also held meetings with the Nippon Foundation delegation.

“Communication is essential, the media has a decisive role to play” to ward off atavistic fears and to clarify that there is a sure cure for Hansen’s Disease, that it is not very contagious and that it ceases to be so shortly after a patient begins to receive treatment, Gross, a Costa Rican doctor with more than 30 years of experience with PAHO in several Latin American countries, told IPS.

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/07/prejudice-discrimination-uncured-ills-leprosy/feed/0In Era of Reform, Ethiopia Still Reverts to Old Tactics to Censor Presshttp://www.ipsnews.net/2019/07/era-reform-ethiopia-still-reverts-old-tactics-censor-press/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=era-reform-ethiopia-still-reverts-old-tactics-censor-press
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/07/era-reform-ethiopia-still-reverts-old-tactics-censor-press/#respondWed, 10 Jul 2019 10:53:40 +0000Muthoki Mumohttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=162361Muthoki Mumo is Sub-Saharan Africa representative of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). She is based in Nairobi, Kenya, and has a master's degree in journalism and globalization from the University of Hamburg.

In the aftermath at least two journalists were detained under the country’s repressive anti-terror law, part of an uptick in arrests that CPJ has noted in the country since May.

While internet shutdowns and anti-terror laws being turned against journalists are nothing new in Ethiopia, their use in recent weeks is in stark contrast to the Ethiopia that welcomed the international media community for World Press Freedom Day celebrations in May and whose prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, has been fêted as taking bold steps in opening up the space for a free press.

Yared Hailemariam, the executive director of the Swiss-based Association for Human Rights in Ethiopia, described the June 22 shutdown to CPJ as “a very wrong and old strategy of the government.” But it wasn’t the only blackout last month.

The country was hit by intermittent network disruptions affecting internet and SMS services between June 11 and June 18, according to the Open Observatory of Network Interference, a global open sourcing network for tracking blocks.

Alongside the blackouts, in the past two months authorities also arrested several journalists and, on July 8, Ethiopia’s Ministry of Defense said in a press conference that it planned to file charges against “individuals and media creating distrust between the public and the army,” the state-affiliated Fana Broadcasting reported.

All this leads to the inevitable question: did we celebrate the opening up of Ethiopia too early?

Most journalists and human rights defenders with whom CPJ spoke said there are concrete wins: journalists who had been imprisoned for years were freed in 2018 and the government is carrying out positive legal reform.

Haimanot Ashenafi, a senior editor at the weekly Addis Maleda, said journalism in Ethiopia today is different from the profession which for years was characterized by “shock and trauma”.

Zelalem Kibret, an Ethiopian academic and former blogger, saidthat he was “ambivalent” as to whether recent events were a case of “an old habit struggling to fade away or a renewed attack on the press.”

However, several of the people with whom CPJ spoke said they were concerned about the future for the media.

“It doesn’t look as bright as it was a few months ago. My optimism is dimming though I am still hopeful,” said Elias Kifle, the chief executive of the online news outlet Mereja TV. He added that the problems reflected polarization in the country.

Belay Manaye, an editor at the privately-owned Satellite Radio and Television (ASRAT) and co-founder of the newspaper, Berera, said, “The way we manage this political crisis will manifest which way we could go in the near future: are we getting back to the dark times or will we manage the crisis and move forward? I hope we can manage.”

Key to moving forward, the journalists said, is greater openness with the public and the media.

The government has not provided an official explanation for the internet shutdowns, which journalists say disrupted their work and made it difficult to communicate with sources.

When CPJ asked Billene Seyoum, a spokesperson in the Prime Minister’s office, about the disruptions she said only that connectivity had been restored. Cherer Aklilu, executive director of the country’s sole service provider, Ethio Telecom, did not respond to CPJ’s June 28 call or request for comment sent via text message.

Attempts to reach Cherer via phone on July 3 were unsuccessful. Ethio Telecom apologized for the shutdowns on June 18 and July 5 via statements posted to its Twitter account.

Haimanot told CPJ that while she believed a shutdown might have throttled “dangerous” speech online on June 22, it could not be the main solution to tackling misinformation. She said that during earlier blackouts that month, conspiracy theories emerged, some of which she had to debunk: a task made difficult because she could not communicate as easily with sources.

Befekadu Hailu, also from Addis Maleda, told CPJ he was disappointed at the shutdown which, he said, was unjustifiable and meant that “the government monopolized the narrative” about events, with the only information available coming from state media.

CPJ experienced the difficulties of reporting during a network disruption first hand. In the absence of a secure means of communication, and with news trickling out of Ethiopia through the diaspora community, misinformation sprouted, including at least one report of a journalist being abducted–a story later debunked by the Amharic service of the German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle.

Anti-terror law back in use

Over 200 people were arrested in the aftermath of the alleged attempted coup, Deutche Welle reported. Of those, at least two–ASRAT manager Berihun Adane and Getachew Ambachew, a volunteer at the station–were detained under Ethiopia’s anti-terror law.

“I’m very concerned about its resuscitation in this delicate time for murky allegations against journalists,” said Zelalem, who was previously convicted under it.

On June 26, a court ordered Getachew, Berihun, who also works for Berera, and four others to be detained for 28 days, pending investigations on allegations of terrorism in connection to the unrest, according to Berihun’s lawyer Henok Aklilu, and the Addis Standard.

Neither the police nor the court specified evidence of the alleged terrorist activity and the journalists have not been charged, Henok and ASRAT editor Betre Getahun told CPJ.

Some of those detained alongside the journalists are members of the Balderas Council, a political movement founded by prominent Ethiopian journalist Eskinder Nega that claims to advocate for the rights of Addis Ababa residents, and is considered by some as controversial.

Eskinder, Henok, and ASRAT editor Betre Getahun said that the pair were not part of the council and that they thought the journalists’ arrests could be linked to the strident editorial line of Berera and ASRAT media. Both outlets are both pro-Amhara, which is one of Ethiopia’s largest ethnic groups.

Separately, a third journalist, ESAT television station reporter Amanuel Mengistu, told CPJ he was arrested from his home in Addis Ababa on June 24 and released unconditionally on June 26.

He said that security searched his home, saying they were looking for weapons, but did not interrogate him or tell him why he was arrested or whether it was connected with his work at ESAT. Before he became a journalist, Amanuel was a member of the Ginbot 7, a group that was previously banned by Ethiopian authorities.

Government spokesperson Billene told CPJ that she did not have specific details about the arrested journalists, but that authorities were investigating people “from various walks of life, professions and parts of the country” in connection to the events of June 22.

Even before the current crisis, authorities were harassing journalists with brief detentions.

Police on May 22 detained Mesganaw Getachew, a reporter with the Ethiopis newspaper, while he was reporting on the demolition of homes in the Arat Kilo neighborhood of Addis Ababa, his editor Eskinder, told CPJ. Mesganaw was released without charge on bail, Eskinder said, adding that police beat and slapped the reporter.

Two days later, Tamirat Abera, a journalist with the privately owned Ahadu FM, was arrested from the station’s office in Addis Ababa by police from the Oromia region, the journalist told CPJ. And Gettye Yalew, an online reporter, told CPJ that he was arrested on May 26 when he went to visit Tamirat in jail.

Both journalists were freed on May 27. Gettye’s release was unconditional, but Tamirat and three of his Ahadu FM journalists face prosecution in connection to their reporting on alleged misconduct in the courts, according to Tamirat, Gettye, and a Facebook post by Ahadu FM.

CPJ is investigating other reports of journalists being arrested and harassed in Addis Ababa and other regions of Ethiopia, including Ethiopis contributor and activist Elias Gebru

Government spokesperson Billene did not comment on specific arrests, but told CPJ that it was “not always directly related to their journalistic activities.” She said the government was committed to opening up the space for the media “at the highest level”.

Oromia regional government spokesperson Admasu Damtew did not respond to CPJ’s text messages in June and early July, requesting comment on Tamirat’s and Gettye’s case. When CPJ called on July 9, Admasu said he could speak in one hour but did not answer CPJ’s follow up call or text message.

The crossroads Ethiopia now finds itself at was reflected in an editorial published in the local publication The Reporter after Tamirat was detained. The editorial said the arrest “sent chills throughout the media industry” and that the government must ensure due process of the law and guard against a return to the past, when Ethiopia was “one giant prison for journalists.”

Muthoki Mumo is Sub-Saharan Africa representative of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). She is based in Nairobi, Kenya, and has a master's degree in journalism and globalization from the University of Hamburg.

Transparency is a critical element of making governance more effective. By making information available, it creates a foundation for greater accountability to citizens.

In recent decades, transparency has been on the rise across Latin America and the Caribbean. According to data from the Global Right to Information Rating, 23 countries in LAC have laws securing citizens’ right to information.

Colombia was the first country in the region to pass such a law in 1985, and Saint Kitts and Nevis was the most recent country to do so in 2018.

While transparency makes information available, we also need publicity to make information accessible, and accountability mechanisms to make information actionable.

Information, per se, is nothing without publicity and accountability. If information does not reach the interested audiences, its effect is negligible. Similarly, even if information reaches the public, if it does not lead to consequences, its effect is not only negligible but potentially harmful.

For example, we have seen, unfortunately, many cases in our region where people can access detailed information about corruption cases, but nothing happens to those who are responsible. This leads to frustration and destroys trust.

Luis Felipe López-Calva

We can think about this progression from transparency to accountability as the “information value chain.” Recently, one way in which the information value chain has been broken in Latin America and the Caribbean is the intentional creation and spread of false information (what is known as “disinformation”).

In many cases these pseudo-facts are created for political purposes and target specific audiences, with the intention to induce certain outcomes (for example, by influencing voting behavior).

This system has been called the “fake news” industry—a term widely used by politicians in recent times. It’s important to note that false information can also be spread unintentionally (what is known as “misinformation”).

The rise of disinformation and misinformation has been facilitated by the rise of technology. Technology—particularly the rise of social media and messaging apps—has reduced the cost of disseminating information to massive audiences.

This has made the “publicity” industry more competitive and created a new social dynamic in which people often take access to information as equivalent to knowledge.

While knowledge is difficult to build and constantly update, information has become easy to get, and public debates are increasingly based on false—and often deliberately false—information.

Indeed, a recent study by scholars at MIT found that false news spreads much more rapidly than true news—and this effect is particularly salient for false political news (in comparison to false news about topics such as terrorism, natural disasters, science, urban legends, or financial information).

According the 2018 Reuters Institute Digital News Report, citizens in LAC countries are facing high exposure to false information, and are very concerned about what news is real and what news is fake on the internet.

In each of the four LAC countries included in the study (Brazil, Chile, Mexico, and Argentina), over 35% of respondents stated that they were exposed to completely made-up news in the last week—reaching as high as 43% of the sample in Mexico.

Moreover, over 60% of respondents stated that they are very or extremely concerned about what is real and what is fake on the internet when it comes to news—reaching as high as 85% of the sample in Brazil.

This high level of concern is consistent with recent experiences with political disinformation in the region—for example, the use of automated bots to influence public opinion in Brazil, Argentina, and Venezuela.

This problem carries with it the concern for broader potential consequences such as deepening political polarization or the erosion of trust in the media. Indeed, over the past few decades years, the dissemination of false information by political parties and levels of political polarization are increasing in tandem in LAC.

This is a challenge not only in LAC, but in many regions around the world. This global preoccupation was reflected in the theme chosen for this year’s World Press Freedom Day—which focused on journalism and elections in times of disinformation.

Several of the countries in Latin America are holding presidential elections later this year: Argentina, Bolivia, Guatemala, and Uruguay. There is a concern in the region about how disinformation campaigns, coupled with microtargeting of political messages and sophisticated online advertising through social networks and online platforms, could affect the outcome of elections.

In Latin America, these initiatives are still nascent, but they are growing. It is important to recognize, however, that combatting the challenge of disinformation campaigns will require the coordinated action of multiple stakeholders such as electoral courts, the media, civil society, academia and tech businesses (such as Facebook, Google, WhatsApp, and Twitter).

Without a strong coalition of actors, it will be difficult to successfully repair the information value chain and achieve accountability.

]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/07/right-information-latin-america-caribbean/feed/0Of Leaders Then and Nowhttp://www.ipsnews.net/2019/07/of-leaders-then-and-now/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=of-leaders-then-and-now
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/07/of-leaders-then-and-now/#respondMon, 08 Jul 2019 16:35:31 +0000Issa Sikiti da Silvahttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=162329Richard Dossevi parks his motorcycle taxi on one of the busiest street corners in Cotonou, Benin’s commercial capital, to wait for commuters amid the summer heat. It has been four years since he left his native Togo to seek work opportunities in neighbouring Benin. He found none. So the marketing graduate had no choice but […]

]]>The post Of Leaders Then and Now appeared first on Inter Press Service.
]]>http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/07/of-leaders-then-and-now/feed/0Sudan’s Fragile Hope for Democracyhttp://www.ipsnews.net/2019/06/sudans-fragile-hope-democracy/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=sudans-fragile-hope-democracy
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/06/sudans-fragile-hope-democracy/#respondFri, 21 Jun 2019 09:56:03 +0000Daniel Yanghttp://www.ipsnews.net/?p=162128Sudanese civilians risk their lives everyday protesting and campaigning for democracy but they face several obstacles, including street closures and no Internet access. However, the prospect for democracy remains uncertain with regional autocracies aiding the military government, ceaseless violent clashes and the UN on retreat. A Sudanese protester, Abdelfatah Arman, told IPS that the situation […]

The African Union - United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur, Sudan, referred to by its acronym UNAMID, was established on 31 July 2007 with the adoption of Security Council resolution 1769. UNAMID has the protection of civilians as its core mandate, but is also tasked with contributing to security for humanitarian assistance, monitoring and verifying implementation of agreements, assisting an inclusive political process, contributing to the promotion of human rights and the rule of law, and monitoring and reporting on the situation along the borders with Chad and the Central African Republic (CAR).

By Daniel YangUNITED NATIONS, Jun 21 2019 (IPS)

Sudanese civilians risk their lives everyday protesting and campaigning for democracy but they face several obstacles, including street closures and no Internet access.

However, the prospect for democracy remains uncertain with regional autocracies aiding the military government, ceaseless violent clashes and the UN on retreat.

A Sudanese protester, Abdelfatah Arman, told IPS that the situation on the ground is characterized by continued violence.

“We started to see military personnel in uniforms, along with the National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS),” Arman said, recalling a protest he participated in Al Souq Al Arabi, the largest open market in the capital Khartoum.

“They were heavily armed and blocked, with their open back pick-up trucks, all the roads leading to the Souq or the Presidential Palace. They used batons, teargas, and had snipers in some buildings,” he said, in an interview with IPS.

“We started to run in every direction to get out of there,” said Arman, who is currently a doctoral student at Penn State University’s education school.

He is also a journalist and a member of the Forces of Freedom and Change (FCC), a protest organization group.

Since December 2018, protesters led by the FFC and the Sudanese Professionals Association (SPA) have taken to the streets in half a dozen cities, demanding the resignation of Sudan’s ruler of thirty years, Omar al-Bashir.

Although al-Bashir was ousted in April, a military government headed by the Transitional Military Council (TMC) has since taken over, rejected the civilian demand for democratic elections and killed more than 100 peaceful sit-in protesters in a brutal crackdown on June 3 that drew international outrage.

Nearly 40 bodies were later reported to be thrown into the Nile River, among them men, women and children. Medical staff were wounded, along with doctors and volunteers at clinics.

Al-Bashir was indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in 2009 on charges of war crimes in the western region of Darfur. The charges are pending and he never appeared before the ICC in the Hague.

Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch has condemned the June massacre, calling for a UN inquiry into the TMC’s violence.

“The decision to unleash violence against peaceful protesters is absolutely unjustified and unlawful, and a slap in the face for those who have been pursuing dialogue to achieve a handover to civilian government,” the organization said.

The crackdown continued with a government Internet shutdown aimed to discourage protests, which rely on platforms like Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp, to communicate.

The Internet shutdown has worsened civilian safety, said journalist Zeinab Mohammed Salih, in a letter to the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).

“Those forced to walk have been seen carrying knives and sticks, especially in Khartoum’s twin city of Omdurman, to protect themselves,” Salih said.

The UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Sudan, Gwi-Yeop Son, has noted the “deteriorating” humanitarian situation in Sudan, voicing deep concern that half a million people are at risk of disease infection without access to proper medical supplies.

Despite mounting obstacles, the SPA has reasserted its conviction for a civilian government, called for an international panel to investigate the “barbaric” June 3 massacre in Khartoum and continued to call for civil disobedience.

However, regional autocracies like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are working towards a different end.

In April, the two Gulf countries reportedly sent Sudan’s military leaders three billion dollars in aid to strengthen the TMC’s counter-revolution efforts.

Security intelligence thinktank The Soufan Group warns that the on-going confrontation could risk spiraling into a full-scale civil war.

“There are clear parallels to some of the Arab Spring protests that eventually progressed to full-blown insurgencies, including Syria, where indiscriminate shelling of civilians by the military initially galvanized protest movements that helped launch a broader uprising,” the organization said.

However, a potential civil war could end up in another military government, repeating Egypt’s path following the Arab Spring.

The United Nations has urged for both sides to resume peaceful negotiations and search for a political solution to the conflict.

At the Security Council meeting on June 14, member states stressed that the worsening humanitarian situation demands continued UN support, but Sudan should take control of its own political future.

“A peaceful and orderly transition aiming to achieve the transfer of political power to a civilian, democratic and representative government is the only lasting way to resolve the current crisis,” said Belgium’s representative Marc Pecsteen de Buytswerve.

The UN withdrew its civilian staff in Khartoum after the June 3 massacre but resumed the rest of its operations.

Arman said that the FFC would not hold negotiations with the military government until the sit-in massacre is investigated. However, despite the present tension with the TMC, Arman remains optimistic for a democratic transition.

“We’re hopeful that if we were able to topple dictator Bashir and his successor Gen. Ahmed Award Ibn Auf, we would be able to topple Gen. Al-Burhan and the military junta.”

“We’ll continue our protest and civil disobedience until they’re out,” said Arman. “We will not accept anything less than a civilian-led government.”